Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tauri binding for Python through Pyo3

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 61 posts

Re: Tauri binding for Python through Pyo3

#21

Post by iDon »

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #6

I don't understand why people like Tauri - the fact it uses the system web browser completely destroys the main advantage of Electron: that you can test it locally and be absolutely sure that it will render like that on any other system since the browser is shipped with it.

I have drafted a photo gallery app in Rust / Tauri, using a JavaScript framework in the frontend. The backend can read directories and files directly, and because the backend and frontend are in a single process, the backend simply passes a file handle (path string possibly) to the frontend. In contrast Electron has to send the image file between processes. I started with Electron and I think that was the point I shifted to Rust / Tauri; seeing the images display immediately was a revelation. Rust / Tauri has the advantages of a desktop app, and I have the option to use the frontend as a web app also.

This Python binding (pytauri) is interesting too - I have colleagues with Python functionality they want to surface on the web, and this would give the possibility of running as a desktop app also - good for large datasets.

Re: Tauri binding for Python through Pyo3

#23

Post by cardanome »

wongarsu wrote: post #14
rubenvanwyk wrote: post #3

Interesting how much cross-pollination is happening in the Python ecosystem with Rust. I think the NiceGUI example is good but quite advanced, might be beneficial to contact the teams from Reflex or FastHTML, because if you could use PyTauri to create potential local apps with those popular frameworks, it could be a big win for them and that can help with marketing around the project.

Rust and Python have very compatible ideas on a lot of topics. For example both think that a developer writing normal code should not have to worry about null pointers or be able to cause a use-after-free. It's just that Python achieves that with runtime costs and Rust with compile-time costs and a complex type system. So developers of one liking the other makes a lot of sense to me. And pyo3 is an extremely convinie…

> For example both think that a developer writing normal code should not have to worry about null pointers or be able to cause a use-after-free

Like 99% of all languages currently in use.

These things have long been solved way before Rust even existed. Rust has only filled the small niche of cases where you can't or don't want to use automatic garbage collection.

> complex type system

Python's type system is orders of magnitude more complex. Dynamic type systems are crazy powerful, this is why Typescript is such an complex beast.

Rust has static type checking, which is what you mean. Which also means that Rust is limited to the types that are can be expressed and are decidable with that system, while Python allows you to do... whatever and types are only checked at runtime or with external tooling.

Python's type system is easier to use but more complex. Rust's is simpler but harder to use. I know people forget the difference between complex and hard but it is an important one.

A better reason Python is Rust are seen together is that Python is an excellent glue language. Same reason people like C and Python. Plus both Rust and Python are pretty trendy these days.

Re: Tauri binding for Python through Pyo3

#24

Post by mpalmer »

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #6

I don't understand why people like Tauri - the fact it uses the system web browser completely destroys the main advantage of Electron: that you can test it locally and be absolutely sure that it will render like that on any other system since the browser is shipped with it.

There's an entire separate copy of Chromium attached to every single goddam Electron app I install. It's completely insane. It's not at all worth the consistency you point out. Far too high a price.

The Tauri team is doing God's work. Electron was a fine enough idea, but I can't wait to see it improve or die. Imagine Electron supporting cross-compilation for mobile OSes. They won't close that particular gap with Tauri any time soon.

Re: Tauri binding for Python through Pyo3

#25

Post by mpalmer »

wolfgangbabad wrote: post #7
GardenLetter27 wrote: post #6

I don't understand why people like Tauri - the fact it uses the system web browser completely destroys the main advantage of Electron: that you can test it locally and be absolutely sure that it will render like that on any other system since the browser is shipped with it.

I agree. I don't mind VS Code or some app a person did eats 300 MB of RAM and is Electron if it does the job done. By the way good luck implement something like rtl, i18n, text select and right click context menus in you favorite C/Go/Rust/ImGui/ImmediateModeWhatever library. Wanna switch between Arabic, Chinese, English in a textarea or input or the whole app? Trivial in Electron. Again, good luck with that in any o…

> With our computers getting more RAM and disk space every few years - especially compared to AI needs, Electron is actually super lean compared to those AI llms models. Funny enough, LM Studio is an Electron app ;)

This is a phenomenally bad take. This is exactly the thought process that has led to the insane software bloat problems we're dealing with now (with Electron as one of the worst offenders).

> good luck implement something like rtl, i18n, text select and right click context menus in you favorite C/Go/Rust/ImGui/ImmediateModeWhatever library.

> Electron is superior for any text/form apps. HTML/CSS/JS are truly magical if you dive deeper and for any form-like classical type of crud apps there is really no better option.

I don't think you understand what Tauri is.

Re: Tauri binding for Python through Pyo3

#27

Post by jonpalmisc »

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #6

I don't understand why people like Tauri - the fact it uses the system web browser completely destroys the main advantage of Electron: that you can test it locally and be absolutely sure that it will render like that on any other system since the browser is shipped with it.

The times of browsers having weirdly different rendering behavior are mostly gone, in my experience. I'm sure ~98% of Electron apps that expect Chromium would render just fine/same under WebKit as well.

Re: Tauri binding for Python through Pyo3

#28

Post by ed_blackburn »

Fraterkes wrote: post #8
GardenLetter27 wrote: post #6

I don't understand why people like Tauri - the fact it uses the system web browser completely destroys the main advantage of Electron: that you can test it locally and be absolutely sure that it will render like that on any other system since the browser is shipped with it.

For a lot of people the main advantage of electron was just being able to use the webdev stack for a desktop app. Tauri makes it less portable but is less bloated. Different tradeofs I guess. Also: I think it’s kinda funny that Tauri is basically a very straightforward of example of trading developer comfort for benefit of the user, and you can’t imagine people using it.

Indeed. It's sacrifices engineering cost for customer experience.

Re: Tauri binding for Python through Pyo3

#29

Post by wongarsu »

cardanome wrote: post #23
wongarsu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rust and Python have very compatible ideas on a lot of topics. For example both think that a developer writing normal code should not have to worry about null pointers or be able to cause a use-after-free. It's just that Python achieves that with runtime costs and Rust with compile-time costs and a complex type system. So developers of one liking the other makes a lot of sense to me. And pyo3 is an extremely convinie…

> For example both think that a developer writing normal code should not have to worry about null pointers or be able to cause a use-after-free Like 99% of all languages currently in use. These things have long been solved way before Rust even existed. Rust has only filled the small niche of cases where you can't or don't want to use automatic garbage collection. > complex type system Python's type system is orders o…

> Like 99% of all languages currently in use.

Yes, but 90% of languages don't make a good complement to python. If you want to have a language to use in combination with python you want something with fast c-interop, which most garbage collected languages can't offer

> Rust has static type checking, which is what you mean

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word complex. But I did primarily mean that Rust uses the type system to ensure "safety", while Python primarily uses other methods. Yes, Rust doing static type checking is also an important component of it.

> A better reason Python is Rust are seen together is that Python is an excellent glue language

That would qualify any language as fitting well to Python. Which I don't agree with. C fits well to Python because it is a good complement: Python is slow to execute and easy to write, C is fast to execute and hard to write, and communication between the two is fast. Rust fits even better to Python because it's easier to write than C (well, easier to write correctly) and because interop is fast and convinient

Post reply on HN