8 ms·

Rust's 2017 roadmap, six months in

175 points by darwhy 9y ago

shock 9y ago
I was really hoping we'd have bindings to Qt by now, but looking at the GUI category on crates.io I didn't find any. What do people use to make cross platform GUIs in Rust?
- shmerl 9y ago
  The last time I checked there was this: https://github.com/White-Oak/qml-rust https://github.com/White-Oak/qml-rust But it looks stalled. Not sure if anyone is working on such bindings today. UPDATE: I just found this which looks active: https://github.com/rust-qt/cpp_to_rust https://github.com/rust-qt/cpp_to_rust
  - JoshTriplett 9y ago
    bindgen has native C++ support (as of recently), so hopefully that will help.
    - shmerl 9y ago
      That's great!
  - kodablah 9y ago
    There are some glaring issues w/ the Rust Qt crates, namely subclassing things like QWidget. But it is high priority [0]. This is essential for using Qt as many things are not "signals" but instead overridable protected methods. I started a embedded browser PoC [1] until I hit these limitations which forced me to use C++ [2]. And many other static langs (i.e. not-python) have issues with their Qt bindings (e.g. Go [3] which can't compile via MSVC which some things like the QtWebEngine stuff need). Sadly, for advanced UI (e.g. complex tree views, docking, etc) that is cross platform and looks native, Qt is all there is, and it's reliance on C++ makes it a bit tough to use across languages. A maintained C iface for Qt is really needed. 0 - https://github.com/rust-qt/cpp_to_rust/issues/53 https://github.com/rust-qt/cpp_to_rust/issues/53 1 - https://github.com/cretz/rust-qt_cef_poc https://github.com/cretz/rust-qt_cef_poc 2 - https://github.com/cretz/qt_cef_poc https://github.com/cretz/qt_cef_poc 3 - https://github.com/therecipe/qt/ https://github.com/therecipe/qt/
- nicoburns 9y ago
  GTK is the best option at the moment. Apparently QT is difficult due to it being heavily based in C++'s view of the world, which doesn't translate particularly well to Rust (notably Rust not supporting OOP in the same way). There is hope of a new rust-native GUI library (possibly in the vain of Flutter[1]) based on the work done for Servo[2], but that looks to be a way off. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/6l5c94/can_we_crowdfund_a_crossplatform_gui_lib_for_rust/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/6l5c94/can_we_crowdfu... [1] https://flutter.io/ https://flutter.io/ [2] https://github.com/servo/webrender https://github.com/servo/webrender
  - shmerl 9y ago
    I think translation problems aren't caused by OOP itself, but by messed up name mangling, and total lack of any sane standard for it in C++.
    - Rusky 9y ago
      Name mangling is by far the easiest part. It's already solved via bindgen and clang.
      - vvanders 9y ago
        That only works for clang based static/dyn libs though right? If I remember correctly msvc has a different set of mangling.
        mwu 9y ago
        Clang also supports MSVC mangling. I've never tried it with bindgen, but it can be done.
        vvanders 9y ago
        Huh, nifty. Learn something new every day, thanks!
        9y ago
- wyldfire 9y ago
  This thread [1] has some good recent discussion of the current state. [1] https://users.rust-lang.org/t/current-state-of-gui-development-in-rust/11643 https://users.rust-lang.org/t/current-state-of-gui-developme...
- rexicus 9y ago
  You might try the imgui/nuklear crates, dealing with generated bindings for something massive like Qt will never be pleasant.
  - dom0 9y ago
    Both PyQt and PySide work quite well for something that "will never be pleasant".
    - rexicus 9y ago
      PyQt and PySide was exactly what I had in mind. It'll leak memory, segfault on load 1% of the time, segfault if you call unrelated methods in the wrong order, you'll randomly get QStrings and QExceptions instead of their Python equivalents, and it'll be impossible to debug.
- coldtea 9y ago
  Nothing much (some OpenGL bindings and such). They use it for systems software and backend services.
abiox 9y ago
still hoping that someday we'll see namespacing in crates/cargo.
- raphlinus 9y ago
  This has been discussed quite a bit, and there are very good reasons why not[0]. But I suppose things can always change. [0]: https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/crates-io-package-policies/1041 https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/crates-io-package-policies...
  - Perceptes 9y ago
    And as a result we have to deal with dumb shit like this: https://twitter.com/jdalton/status/869964222716821504 https://twitter.com/jdalton/status/869964222716821504 (continued) https://twitter.com/littlecalculist/status/870356560047816704 https://twitter.com/littlecalculist/status/87035656004781670...
- aphistic 9y ago
  I don't think I follow you. Can't you create namespaces using modules?
ofek 9y ago
Those integrations with other languages look awesome! I just wish there was a good one for Python.
- Dowwie 9y ago
  @mitsuhiko has been working on one: https://github.com/mitsuhiko/snaek https://github.com/mitsuhiko/snaek and there's "pythonium trioxide", but I've gotten the impression that its more of an exploratory project: https://github.com/PyO3/PyO3 https://github.com/PyO3/PyO3
  - fafhrd91 9y ago
    PyO3 is close to first release.
    - Dowwie 9y ago
      I'm looking forward to it!
- stusmall 9y ago
  Have you seen this one: https://github.com/dgrunwald/rust-cpython https://github.com/dgrunwald/rust-cpython The extension-module feature might give you what you want
  - dbrgn 9y ago
    This, combined with https://github.com/PyO3/setuptools-rust https://github.com/PyO3/setuptools-rust, is a pretty fantastic way to create native Python extension modules.
MichaelGG 9y ago
Is seems that Racer is still missing support for auto-complete on basic code snippets: let x = vec![1] x.<no completion> Even if they special cased vec! or all the std macros, it'd be a good on-ramp improvement. But I thought RLS was supposed to step in where Racer can't handle things - is that not the case for macro support?
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  You said racer above; did you mean to say the RLS?
  - MichaelGG 9y ago
    The linked article mentions that RLS completes via Racer, which is inline with what I understood before: Racer's a lot faster for this use-case, so RLS delegates to it.
    - steveklabnik 9y ago
      Yes, my confusion is that in your OP, you were talking a bunch about racer, but then switched to the RLS. Right now, it's exactly what you said. RLS is still an extremely active project, and so are the compiler internals it relies on, so it's going to gain features in the future. I'm not aware of any specific plans to exclude macros, but it's not my area of specialty.
- saghm 9y ago
  > Is seems that Racer is still missing support for auto-complete on basic code snippets Interesting; I view that as a bit more than a "basic" snippet for autocompletion to handle, although that's mostly a few facto interpretation because it's one of the few things that no Rust autocompletion engine I've tried (racer, RLS, or Intellij's plugin) has been able to handle. For pretty much everything else I've tried, at least one of them has been able it.
  - MichaelGG 9y ago
Lerc 9y ago
One of the things that I'd like to see for the Rust Book is some form of "Here's how to use it in a function". For example, Taking a random piece of code from the Rust Book let buffer: &mut [i32]; let coefficients: [i64; 12]; let qlp_shift: i16; for i in 12..buffer.len() { let prediction = coefficients.iter() .zip(&buffer[i - 12..i]) .map(|(&c, &s)| c * s as i64) .sum::<i64>() >> qlp_shift; let delta = buffer[i]; buffer[i] = prediction as i32 + delta; } How would one break part of this into a function fn get_part ??? What might go here ??? let buffer: &mut [i32]; let coefficients: [i64; 12]; let qlp_shift: i16; for i in 12..buffer.len() { let prediction = get_part(&coefficients,&buffer,i) .map(|(&c, &s)| c * s as i64) .sum::<i64>() >> qlp_shift; let delta = buffer[i]; buffer[i] = prediction as i32 + delta; } [Exercise for the reader] I'm not sure If I could write the code to do this without taking a few wrong turns.
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  Well, this code in particular is presented as "hey there's no context." If I were to try to extract this, I would take each of those lets and make them an argument, then see what the compiler says for the return type, done.
  - Lerc 9y ago
    How do you find out what the compiler says for the return type? Is that covered in the book somewhere? I feel like this might help me quite a bit in my struggles.
    - bbatha 9y ago
      I commonly let the compiler error out by specifying the wrong type or leaving off a type annotation. For instance, https://is.gd/8lLrY8 https://is.gd/8lLrY8
    - steveklabnik 9y ago
clumsysmurf 9y ago
"Even better, you can pre-order a printed version through No Starch Press." Thanks for choosing a publisher that supplies DRM-free eBooks ;)
- quodlibetor 9y ago
  It's available online: https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second-edition/ https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second-edition/ , a publisher that didn't believe in digital sharing that also agreed to publish it would be a little... surprising.
  - clumsysmurf 9y ago
    That would be MIT press (sometimes). For example https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/deep-learning https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/deep-learning is available at http://www.deeplearningbook.org/ http://www.deeplearningbook.org/ , but you can't get DRM-free ePubs or PDFs.
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  You're welcome; this was important to me. In addition, No Starch's commitment to letting the book be generally freely available on doc.rust-lang.org was mandatory, and they are awesome enough to be supportive of that :)
  - artificial 9y ago
    Thank you for your efforts. I purchased the book today!
kevinSuttle 9y ago
> We’ve also been working on a number of language changes aimed at improving language ergonomics. http://bukk.it/clap.gif http://bukk.it/clap.gif

175 points by darwhy 9y ago

I was really hoping we'd have bindings to Qt by now, but looking at the GUI category on crates.io I didn't find any. What do people use to make cross platform GUIs in Rust?

shmerl 9y ago
The last time I checked there was this: https://github.com/White-Oak/qml-rust https://github.com/White-Oak/qml-rust But it looks stalled. Not sure if anyone is working on such bindings today. UPDATE: I just found this which looks active: https://github.com/rust-qt/cpp_to_rust https://github.com/rust-qt/cpp_to_rust
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  bindgen has native C++ support (as of recently), so hopefully that will help.
  - shmerl 9y ago
    That's great!
- kodablah 9y ago
  There are some glaring issues w/ the Rust Qt crates, namely subclassing things like QWidget. But it is high priority [0]. This is essential for using Qt as many things are not "signals" but instead overridable protected methods. I started a embedded browser PoC [1] until I hit these limitations which forced me to use C++ [2]. And many other static langs (i.e. not-python) have issues with their Qt bindings (e.g. Go [3] which can't compile via MSVC which some things like the QtWebEngine stuff need). Sadly, for advanced UI (e.g. complex tree views, docking, etc) that is cross platform and looks native, Qt is all there is, and it's reliance on C++ makes it a bit tough to use across languages. A maintained C iface for Qt is really needed. 0 - https://github.com/rust-qt/cpp_to_rust/issues/53 https://github.com/rust-qt/cpp_to_rust/issues/53 1 - https://github.com/cretz/rust-qt_cef_poc https://github.com/cretz/rust-qt_cef_poc 2 - https://github.com/cretz/qt_cef_poc https://github.com/cretz/qt_cef_poc 3 - https://github.com/therecipe/qt/ https://github.com/therecipe/qt/
nicoburns 9y ago
GTK is the best option at the moment. Apparently QT is difficult due to it being heavily based in C++'s view of the world, which doesn't translate particularly well to Rust (notably Rust not supporting OOP in the same way). There is hope of a new rust-native GUI library (possibly in the vain of Flutter[1]) based on the work done for Servo[2], but that looks to be a way off. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/6l5c94/can_we_crowdfund_a_crossplatform_gui_lib_for_rust/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/6l5c94/can_we_crowdfu... [1] https://flutter.io/ https://flutter.io/ [2] https://github.com/servo/webrender https://github.com/servo/webrender
- shmerl 9y ago
  I think translation problems aren't caused by OOP itself, but by messed up name mangling, and total lack of any sane standard for it in C++.
  - Rusky 9y ago
    Name mangling is by far the easiest part. It's already solved via bindgen and clang.
    - vvanders 9y ago
      That only works for clang based static/dyn libs though right? If I remember correctly msvc has a different set of mangling.
      - mwu 9y ago
        Clang also supports MSVC mangling. I've never tried it with bindgen, but it can be done.
        vvanders 9y ago
        Huh, nifty. Learn something new every day, thanks!
      - 9y ago
wyldfire 9y ago
This thread [1] has some good recent discussion of the current state. [1] https://users.rust-lang.org/t/current-state-of-gui-development-in-rust/11643 https://users.rust-lang.org/t/current-state-of-gui-developme...
rexicus 9y ago
You might try the imgui/nuklear crates, dealing with generated bindings for something massive like Qt will never be pleasant.
- dom0 9y ago
  Both PyQt and PySide work quite well for something that "will never be pleasant".
  - rexicus 9y ago
    PyQt and PySide was exactly what I had in mind. It'll leak memory, segfault on load 1% of the time, segfault if you call unrelated methods in the wrong order, you'll randomly get QStrings and QExceptions instead of their Python equivalents, and it'll be impossible to debug.
coldtea 9y ago
Nothing much (some OpenGL bindings and such). They use it for systems software and backend services.

abiox 9y ago

still hoping that someday we'll see namespacing in crates/cargo.

raphlinus 9y ago
This has been discussed quite a bit, and there are very good reasons why not[0]. But I suppose things can always change. [0]: https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/crates-io-package-policies/1041 https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/crates-io-package-policies...
- Perceptes 9y ago
  And as a result we have to deal with dumb shit like this: https://twitter.com/jdalton/status/869964222716821504 https://twitter.com/jdalton/status/869964222716821504 (continued) https://twitter.com/littlecalculist/status/870356560047816704 https://twitter.com/littlecalculist/status/87035656004781670...
aphistic 9y ago
I don't think I follow you. Can't you create namespaces using modules?

ofek 9y ago

Those integrations with other languages look awesome! I just wish there was a good one for Python.

Dowwie 9y ago
@mitsuhiko has been working on one: https://github.com/mitsuhiko/snaek https://github.com/mitsuhiko/snaek and there's "pythonium trioxide", but I've gotten the impression that its more of an exploratory project: https://github.com/PyO3/PyO3 https://github.com/PyO3/PyO3
- fafhrd91 9y ago
  PyO3 is close to first release.
  - Dowwie 9y ago
    I'm looking forward to it!
stusmall 9y ago
Have you seen this one: https://github.com/dgrunwald/rust-cpython https://github.com/dgrunwald/rust-cpython The extension-module feature might give you what you want
- dbrgn 9y ago
  This, combined with https://github.com/PyO3/setuptools-rust https://github.com/PyO3/setuptools-rust, is a pretty fantastic way to create native Python extension modules.

MichaelGG 9y ago

Is seems that Racer is still missing support for auto-complete on basic code snippets: let x = vec![1] x.<no completion> Even if they special cased vec! or all the std macros, it'd be a good on-ramp improvement. But I thought RLS was supposed to step in where Racer can't handle things - is that not the case for macro support?

steveklabnik 9y ago
You said racer above; did you mean to say the RLS?
- MichaelGG 9y ago
  The linked article mentions that RLS completes via Racer, which is inline with what I understood before: Racer's a lot faster for this use-case, so RLS delegates to it.
  - steveklabnik 9y ago
    Yes, my confusion is that in your OP, you were talking a bunch about racer, but then switched to the RLS. Right now, it's exactly what you said. RLS is still an extremely active project, and so are the compiler internals it relies on, so it's going to gain features in the future. I'm not aware of any specific plans to exclude macros, but it's not my area of specialty.
saghm 9y ago
> Is seems that Racer is still missing support for auto-complete on basic code snippets Interesting; I view that as a bit more than a "basic" snippet for autocompletion to handle, although that's mostly a few facto interpretation because it's one of the few things that no Rust autocompletion engine I've tried (racer, RLS, or Intellij's plugin) has been able to handle. For pretty much everything else I've tried, at least one of them has been able it.
- MichaelGG 9y ago

Lerc 9y ago

One of the things that I'd like to see for the Rust Book is some form of "Here's how to use it in a function". For example, Taking a random piece of code from the Rust Book let buffer: &mut [i32]; let coefficients: [i64; 12]; let qlp_shift: i16; for i in 12..buffer.len() { let prediction = coefficients.iter() .zip(&buffer[i - 12..i]) .map(|(&c, &s)| c * s as i64) .sum::<i64>() >> qlp_shift; let delta = buffer[i]; buffer[i] = prediction as i32 + delta; } How would one break part of this into a function fn get_part ??? What might go here ??? let buffer: &mut [i32]; let coefficients: [i64; 12]; let qlp_shift: i16; for i in 12..buffer.len() { let prediction = get_part(&coefficients,&buffer,i) .map(|(&c, &s)| c * s as i64) .sum::<i64>() >> qlp_shift; let delta = buffer[i]; buffer[i] = prediction as i32 + delta; } [Exercise for the reader] I'm not sure If I could write the code to do this without taking a few wrong turns.

steveklabnik 9y ago
Well, this code in particular is presented as "hey there's no context." If I were to try to extract this, I would take each of those lets and make them an argument, then see what the compiler says for the return type, done.
- Lerc 9y ago
  How do you find out what the compiler says for the return type? Is that covered in the book somewhere? I feel like this might help me quite a bit in my struggles.
  - bbatha 9y ago
    I commonly let the compiler error out by specifying the wrong type or leaving off a type annotation. For instance, https://is.gd/8lLrY8 https://is.gd/8lLrY8
  - steveklabnik 9y ago

clumsysmurf 9y ago

"Even better, you can pre-order a printed version through No Starch Press." Thanks for choosing a publisher that supplies DRM-free eBooks ;)

quodlibetor 9y ago
It's available online: https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second-edition/ https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second-edition/ , a publisher that didn't believe in digital sharing that also agreed to publish it would be a little... surprising.
- clumsysmurf 9y ago
  That would be MIT press (sometimes). For example https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/deep-learning https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/deep-learning is available at http://www.deeplearningbook.org/ http://www.deeplearningbook.org/ , but you can't get DRM-free ePubs or PDFs.
steveklabnik 9y ago
You're welcome; this was important to me. In addition, No Starch's commitment to letting the book be generally freely available on doc.rust-lang.org was mandatory, and they are awesome enough to be supportive of that :)
- artificial 9y ago
  Thank you for your efforts. I purchased the book today!

kevinSuttle 9y ago

> We’ve also been working on a number of language changes aimed at improving language ergonomics. http://bukk.it/clap.gif http://bukk.it/clap.gif