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Servo guys have the potential to make something amazing (i.e. a sane electron type library). But I'm not sure how much they care about that. Other then that the

by rapsey 9y ago

Servo guys have the potential to make something amazing (i.e. a sane electron type library). But I'm not sure how much they care about that. Other then that there is nothing serious going on.

IshKebab 9y ago
There's a project called Limn trying to do this. I doubt it has solved the ergonomics issue though.
- rapsey 9y ago
  Anyone pinning hope on limn should take a look at the activity on the project since start of December.
  - littlestymaar 9y ago
    I wouldn't be too pessimistic about a project just because the main author stopped pushing changes for one month in the holliday season. It also happened in August for the same project and work resumed later at a fast path.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      If the project has only one main author, I would be. Even more so if they are on and off and not paid for it. Heck, TextMate and somewhat Sublime Text had such issues with 1 single dev, and those are projects that actually make them money...
      - laumars 9y ago
        That's not a fair comparison as they weren't open source so it was impossible for the community to help contribute (and the community did want to contribute when it looked like development had stalled). Where as limn is open source so if it does prove worthwhile but development stalls it would be trivially easy for any number of other developers fork the git repo and carry on the work.
        rapsey 9y ago
        > it would be trivially easy for any number of other developers fork the git repo and carry on the work. Expecting that is wishful thinking. The fact of the matter is making something like that is an insane amount of tedious work and 99% of the time it is started up by people playing around with the concepts and abandoned once the initial fun problems are tackled. Something I am sure will happen with limn.
        laumars 9y ago
        I agree however that could equally happen with any similar Rust UI library that isn't backed by a corporate entity. And seeming as there isn't any corporate backed UI libraries for Rust (at least that I'm aware of), you're literally no worse off with limn than you are with anything else.
        coldtea 9y ago
        >That's not a fair comparison as they weren't open source so it was impossible for the community to help contribute It is fair, as whether it's possible for the community to contribute is a moot point if the community wont contribute. Heck, GTK+, which is used by millions, had just one person working on it full time a few years ago (not sure if changed since), and lamenting how there's no community help in the project's blog. And that's for a hugely used and know project. I doubt a Rust UI lib would get more than that.
        Conan_Kudo 9y ago
        > Heck, GTK+, which is used by millions, had just one person working on it full time a few years ago (not sure if changed since), and lamenting how there's no community help in the project's blog. And that's for a hugely used and know project. I doubt a Rust UI lib would get more than that. This is not true for GTK+ 3. GTK+ 2, however, has been in maintenance mode since the introduction of GTK+ 3 and has been in that state since.
        laumars 9y ago
        > It is fair, as whether it's possible for the community to contribute is a moot point if the community wont contribute. Well as I had already said in my previous post, the community did want to contribute to Sublime Text but couldn't. Hence why I posted my rebuttal stating the original examples weren't really fair. Your revised example is far more apt however in a roundabout way it just reinforces my original point. Since, by your own admission, any Rust UI lib is unlikely to see many dedicated contributors; it would be daft to criticize limn for a trait that you have just acknowledged would be typical for any Rust UI library. To put things another way: if the project had stalled for months at a time then I could understand people's skepticism trusting the maintainer. However a brief period without commits during the holiday season seams more than reasonable for an active project. Particularly when you even comment afterwards that any similar project isn't likely to see more active development anyway. So why single this one out as being less trustworthy? It feels very much like your applying double standards here.
  - laumars 9y ago
    You're talking about just over a month. I think it's a little unfair to expect people to maintain hobby projects every week of every year. Particularly over Christmas and the new year when our lives are often busier than usual. To use a personal example, an open source project I actively maintain only yesterday saw it's first commits since the end of November. But I am still very much committed to that project.
sho_hn 9y ago
> a sane electron type library There's no version of that concept that's sane at this time, though. Wrapping full-fidelity APIs the browser engine has access to in a lossy abstraction layer of shoddy web platform APIs isn't a practice Servo can improve upon. It takes improving those APIs.

by rapsey 9y ago

Servo guys have the potential to make something amazing (i.e. a sane electron type library). But I'm not sure how much they care about that. Other then that there is nothing serious going on.

IshKebab 9y ago

There's a project called Limn trying to do this. I doubt it has solved the ergonomics issue though.

rapsey 9y ago
Anyone pinning hope on limn should take a look at the activity on the project since start of December.
- littlestymaar 9y ago
  I wouldn't be too pessimistic about a project just because the main author stopped pushing changes for one month in the holliday season. It also happened in August for the same project and work resumed later at a fast path.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    If the project has only one main author, I would be. Even more so if they are on and off and not paid for it. Heck, TextMate and somewhat Sublime Text had such issues with 1 single dev, and those are projects that actually make them money...
    - laumars 9y ago
      That's not a fair comparison as they weren't open source so it was impossible for the community to help contribute (and the community did want to contribute when it looked like development had stalled). Where as limn is open source so if it does prove worthwhile but development stalls it would be trivially easy for any number of other developers fork the git repo and carry on the work.
      - rapsey 9y ago
        > it would be trivially easy for any number of other developers fork the git repo and carry on the work. Expecting that is wishful thinking. The fact of the matter is making something like that is an insane amount of tedious work and 99% of the time it is started up by people playing around with the concepts and abandoned once the initial fun problems are tackled. Something I am sure will happen with limn.
        laumars 9y ago
        I agree however that could equally happen with any similar Rust UI library that isn't backed by a corporate entity. And seeming as there isn't any corporate backed UI libraries for Rust (at least that I'm aware of), you're literally no worse off with limn than you are with anything else.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >That's not a fair comparison as they weren't open source so it was impossible for the community to help contribute It is fair, as whether it's possible for the community to contribute is a moot point if the community wont contribute. Heck, GTK+, which is used by millions, had just one person working on it full time a few years ago (not sure if changed since), and lamenting how there's no community help in the project's blog. And that's for a hugely used and know project. I doubt a Rust UI lib would get more than that.
        Conan_Kudo 9y ago
        > Heck, GTK+, which is used by millions, had just one person working on it full time a few years ago (not sure if changed since), and lamenting how there's no community help in the project's blog. And that's for a hugely used and know project. I doubt a Rust UI lib would get more than that. This is not true for GTK+ 3. GTK+ 2, however, has been in maintenance mode since the introduction of GTK+ 3 and has been in that state since.
        laumars 9y ago
        > It is fair, as whether it's possible for the community to contribute is a moot point if the community wont contribute. Well as I had already said in my previous post, the community did want to contribute to Sublime Text but couldn't. Hence why I posted my rebuttal stating the original examples weren't really fair. Your revised example is far more apt however in a roundabout way it just reinforces my original point. Since, by your own admission, any Rust UI lib is unlikely to see many dedicated contributors; it would be daft to criticize limn for a trait that you have just acknowledged would be typical for any Rust UI library. To put things another way: if the project had stalled for months at a time then I could understand people's skepticism trusting the maintainer. However a brief period without commits during the holiday season seams more than reasonable for an active project. Particularly when you even comment afterwards that any similar project isn't likely to see more active development anyway. So why single this one out as being less trustworthy? It feels very much like your applying double standards here.
- laumars 9y ago
  You're talking about just over a month. I think it's a little unfair to expect people to maintain hobby projects every week of every year. Particularly over Christmas and the new year when our lives are often busier than usual. To use a personal example, an open source project I actively maintain only yesterday saw it's first commits since the end of November. But I am still very much committed to that project.

sho_hn 9y ago

> a sane electron type library There's no version of that concept that's sane at this time, though. Wrapping full-fidelity APIs the browser engine has access to in a lossy abstraction layer of shoddy web platform APIs isn't a practice Servo can improve upon. It takes improving those APIs.