Ode to the M1 - Hackdot

Re:Ode to the M1 by winter_blue on Sunday August 13, 2023 @03:00AM (#37107354)

What I'd really like to see with CEF et al, is JS being dropped, in favor of directly controlling the DOM from the host language. Then we could, for example, write a Rust (or Kotlin, Zig, Haskell, etc) desktop application that simply directly manipulated the DOM, and had it rendered by a HTML+CSS layout engine. Folks could then write a React-like framework for that language (to help render & re-render the DOM in an elegant way).

Ultralight (https://ultralig.ht/) looks pretty cool. I think another possible option is Servo (https://github.com/servo/servo) – it was abandoned by Mozilla along with Rust during their layoffs a while back (but the project still seems to have a decent bit of activity). It would be great if some group of devs could revive the project, or a company could fund such a revival.

Eventually, we'll need to reflect on, and explore whether HTML+CSS is really the best way to do layout, and we could maybe perhaps consider proting the Android/iOS layout approach over to desktop.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ode to the M1 by rhaway84773 on Sunday August 13, 2023 @03:28AM (#37107511)

We already know HTML/CSS are not the best way to do layout. We already have many desktop based UI frameworks to create cross platform desktop apps.

GTK, QT, etc which are also superior to the single app, limited size focused Android/iOS UI frameworks. More importantly, unlike iOS/Android, they’re even cross platform.

HTML/CSS/JS are successful because of the same reason electron exists. The success of the web means there’s a huge developer base that knows how to work with HTML/CSS/JS which was the original lingua franca of the web, and there are tons of libraries, frameworks, tools, components, etc available in the HTML/CSS/JS world that makes development easier and quicker.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ode to the M1 by aastronaut on Sunday August 13, 2023 @05:08AM (#37108071)

> HTML/CSS/JS are successful because of the same reason electron exists. The success of the web means there’s a huge developer base that knows how to work with HTML/CSS/JS

The actual reason is a different one IMHO. The implementation of web standards enabled cross-platform engines that provide every UI customization one could possibly need for a SaaS product. This decision included many benefits for businesses and developers alike, such as:

- User data stays in the walled garden

- Users most probably already have a web-browser installed

- Responsibility to keep the runtime (web-browser) up-to-date is on the user side

- Automated updates (POV user)

- No installation instructions

I think it as much as a business decision as it was the decision from developers to bet on HTML/CSS/JS instead of GTK, QT, etc.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ode to the M1 by satvikpendem on Sunday August 13, 2023 @04:54AM (#37107979)

Flutter does something like this, rendering on a canvas directly and eschewing HTML, CSS and JS altogether. It works pretty well. With WASM in the future though I suspect many other languages will adopt a similar paradigm.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ode to the M1 by yencabulator on Sunday August 13, 2023 @04:28PM (#37114104)

> directly controlling the DOM from the host language

I think your path to this future is getting a DOM API specced for WASM (as in, not going via a Javascript bridge). WASI might help.

If and when that happens, then you can repurpose that same API without necessarily needing to compile to WASM. The biggest hurdle is that the current DOM API is a Javascript API, not an API describing e.g. memory layouts.

[ Parent | on HN ]