I just started to learn Kotlin, how does it compare with Kotlin Multi Platform for those that used both?
Skip is now free and open source
21–30 of 235 posts
Re: Skip is now free and open source
#22If I use Skip to make a cross-platform app, will TalkBack be able to read it to users as well as VoiceOver?
Yes, the unique benefit of Skip is that you are using the real native toolkits on both platforms. So you get both SwiftUI's accessibility support via VoiceOver, as well as Jetpack Compose's support via TalkBack.
Re: Skip is now free and open source
#23This is great news, thank you. I have been looking into a way to port Soundscape Community [1], a navigation app for the blind to Android without having two codebases to maintain. Skip looks ideal; I was planning on asking you about licensing for a very small team with almost no funding. Someone else already asked about talkback accessibility; I assume it will work because it translates to native UI controls on andro…
Yes, as I just responded there, Skip uses the native toolkits and conventions on both platforms: SwiftUI on iOS and Jetpack Compose on Android. So you automatically get the platforms' built-in accessibility support.
You can see a sample snippet at https://skip.dev/docs/components/accessibility/
Re: Skip is now free and open source
#24> The plain truth is that developers expect to get their tools free of charge. I've run into this too with my own app. I thought people would like a Lua GUI framework that's professional grade and gives you full access to WinAPI via Lua. I was using DragonRuby as my model. So I wasted a thousand hours making the app and its documentation. Turns out, even after people understood what it was (I suck at marketing), ever…
Did you reach out to Lua heavy shops?
Re: Skip is now free and open source
#25This is amazing! Thank you for open sourcing the project. It must have been a hard decision.
Thanks! It has been a long time coming. As we mentioned in the post, developer tools really need to be freely obtainable in order to gain mass adoption. In that sense, it was an easy strategic decision. And we felt that the time was right, given that Skip's benefits are being thrust to the foreground in light of recent developments.
You should really consider why free software exists. Open source is open source, sure, but it is a disservice to your users to ever release proprietary software for any reason.
I personally would not start or run a business that didn’t release all software it builds under free software licenses. We don’t open source it because “developers expect it”, we open source it because it’s the right thing to do by your users.
Free software is an ideology, not just a license.
Re: Skip is now free and open source
#26> The plain truth is that developers expect to get their tools free of charge. I've run into this too with my own app. I thought people would like a Lua GUI framework that's professional grade and gives you full access to WinAPI via Lua. I was using DragonRuby as my model. So I wasted a thousand hours making the app and its documentation. Turns out, even after people understood what it was (I suck at marketing), ever…
> What's the point? Marketing for my skills as a developer? There's no more need for software consultants now with Copilot/etc. I have to change careers.
I encourage you to find a way out of this belief, or at least least fend it off as long as possible.
You can see from recent HN postings that most people are not experiencing career-ending levels of performance from LLMs.
Re: Skip is now free and open source
#27Interesting. I used Expo recently and loved the development experience. I also built a simple iPhone app with Swift, and it was a decent experience. I have plans of building another iPhone app and was considering Swift again, which would make me miss building an Android app, but maybe Skip would allow me to do it anyways.
Re: Skip is now free and open source
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks! It has been a long time coming. As we mentioned in the post, developer tools really need to be freely obtainable in order to gain mass adoption. In that sense, it was an easy strategic decision. And we felt that the time was right, given that Skip's benefits are being thrust to the foreground in light of recent developments.
You should really consider why free software exists. Open source is open source, sure, but it is a disservice to your users to ever release proprietary software for any reason. I personally would not start or run a business that didn’t release all software it builds under free software licenses. We don’t open source it because “developers expect it”, we open source it because it’s the right thing to do by your users.…
> Free software is an ideology, not just a license.
Yes and people shouldn't enforce ideology on top of each other. I am speaking this as an free software advocate too.
the fact of the matter is open source is still barely fundable and I am pretty sure that they evaluated multiple decisions to come up to this regarding how fundable it is and other factors.
If we have to indoctrinate someone into our ideology, it means that our ideology is unable to gain weight by its own merit. No, let open source do the work and welcome people for who are now open source. Have open arms to everyone who open sources their work & incentive them to do so with a happy heart.
Open source is about freedom. And being honest, If they wrote the code themselves, then its their freedom to have it in open source or not.
I for one, welcome another great open source! Thanks for going open source and Good luck to skip in future!
I know Open source has some issues regarding funding etc. so I hope that people donate to skip & make the project sustainable!
Have a nice day skip team!
Re: Skip is now free and open source
#29Interesting. I used Expo recently and loved the development experience. I also built a simple iPhone app with Swift, and it was a decent experience. I have plans of building another iPhone app and was considering Swift again, which would make me miss building an Android app, but maybe Skip would allow me to do it anyways.
Biggest downside to SwiftUI development is lack of hot reloading. You can use the Inject framework but it’s fragile. This also makes it harder to iterate on with agents.
Re: Skip is now free and open source
#30"At least 32GB of memory is recommended for development with Skip." Dear lord, what?
Well, you're running both the iOS development tools (Xcode, iOS Simulator), plus the Android development tools (Gradle, Android emulator, and maybe Android Studio too). These add up. 16GB might be possible, though. (Skip itself doesn't take much memory. If you run it headlessly as a SwiftPM plugin, you wouldn't need nearly that much.)
Ah, yeah yeah, not meant as slight towards Skip (seems like a cool project). Just me being offended by the plain content of that sentence.