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Less people know Vala than C, the Qt crate for Rust is some autogenerated thing that doesn't look very well-supported (not sure about GTK), and Python might not

Less people know Vala than C, the Qt crate for Rust is some autogenerated thing that doesn't look very well-supported (not sure about GTK), and Python might not be the right choice for an embedded platform. I'm fine with letting the platform mature a little before the scope of the project is broadened.

steveklabnik 9y ago
GTK is re-writing bits in Rust, so it’s a pretty robust option overall. Lots of work left to do!
- shmerl 9y ago
  Is Qt with Rust usable already, or it's still very experimental?
  - steveklabnik 9y ago
    I don't have personal experience, but my understanding is that GTK is much easier since it's in C; QT makes use of some C++ features like inheritance that don't have a direct analogue in Rust that makes it hard. I've heard of several people doing things, but am not sure there's a particular go-to amazing solution at the moment.
    - shmerl 9y ago
      The last time I looked into it, there was this project: https://phabricator.kde.org/source/rust-qt-binding-generator/ https://phabricator.kde.org/source/rust-qt-binding-generator... But it was in the prototype stage then.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  I only dabbled with Gtk-rs for a bit, and Rust does not really fit my UI/UX workflows, but I would still suggest as major improvement a better way to being able to reference struct fields from callbacks without the current Option<Rc<>> workarounds.
  - steveklabnik 9y ago
    There are already some projects that let you do that, consider Relm for example: https://github.com/antoyo/relm/blob/master/examples/http/src/main.rs#L102-L180 https://github.com/antoyo/relm/blob/master/examples/http/src...
craftyguy 9y ago
> Python might not be the right choice for an embedded platform. I use micropython in several of my projects for CPUs that are waaaay less powered than the thing they're putting in the Librem5 and, despite not being a 100% feature full implementation of python, it's still a very capable platform. Granted, I don't drive any UIs (yet), but those components would be handled by some native libraries anyways on the Librem5, and the choice of python vs C would not matter from that respect.
- solarkraft 9y ago
  But it's not micropyhon, you have many apps running on a phone and want them to be as efficient as possible. From my experience with Vala (compiles to C) it would have been a much better choice.

steveklabnik 9y ago

GTK is re-writing bits in Rust, so it’s a pretty robust option overall. Lots of work left to do!

shmerl 9y ago
Is Qt with Rust usable already, or it's still very experimental?
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  I don't have personal experience, but my understanding is that GTK is much easier since it's in C; QT makes use of some C++ features like inheritance that don't have a direct analogue in Rust that makes it hard. I've heard of several people doing things, but am not sure there's a particular go-to amazing solution at the moment.
  - shmerl 9y ago
    The last time I looked into it, there was this project: https://phabricator.kde.org/source/rust-qt-binding-generator/ https://phabricator.kde.org/source/rust-qt-binding-generator... But it was in the prototype stage then.
pjmlp 9y ago
I only dabbled with Gtk-rs for a bit, and Rust does not really fit my UI/UX workflows, but I would still suggest as major improvement a better way to being able to reference struct fields from callbacks without the current Option<Rc<>> workarounds.
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  There are already some projects that let you do that, consider Relm for example: https://github.com/antoyo/relm/blob/master/examples/http/src/main.rs#L102-L180 https://github.com/antoyo/relm/blob/master/examples/http/src...

craftyguy 9y ago

> Python might not be the right choice for an embedded platform. I use micropython in several of my projects for CPUs that are waaaay less powered than the thing they're putting in the Librem5 and, despite not being a 100% feature full implementation of python, it's still a very capable platform. Granted, I don't drive any UIs (yet), but those components would be handled by some native libraries anyways on the Librem5, and the choice of python vs C would not matter from that respect.

solarkraft 9y ago
But it's not micropyhon, you have many apps running on a phone and want them to be as efficient as possible. From my experience with Vala (compiles to C) it would have been a much better choice.