4 ms·

Android Open Source Project Now Includes the Fuchsia SDK and a Fuchsia ‘device’

71 points by MikusR 8y ago

xvilka 8y ago
Too bad they didn't write Fuchsia itself in Rust. You expect something better than plain old C++ for a project in 2018.
- noahster11 8y ago
  Although the majority of Fuchsia was written in C++, some of it does include Rust[0]. [0]: https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror?language=rust https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror?language=rust
  - steveklabnik 8y ago
    Note that that only shows repos which are majority Rust, https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/garnet https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/garnet for example, is 12% Rust according to GitHub.
- steveklabnik 8y ago
  Fuchsia was started before Rust 1.0, and you still can't do OS dev on stable. It would have been cool, but I also don't think they inherently made the wrong choice. That said, there's a few hundred thousands of lines of Rust in there, and more on the way. The Fuchsia team also lets some of its team contribute back to Rust development, which is far more support than having the kernel part of a microkernel be in the language, IMO. (You can see this in Futures and async/await, which Fuchsia makes heavy use of, and the team has been very helpful in driving the design and implementation to completion.)
  - xvilka 8y ago
    Yes, I am aware of their contribution since I follow the Rust development news. Thank you for the information anyway!
mitjak 8y ago
I'm not sold on Fuchsia. The UI harks back a little too much to Java native look-alike widgets which always fell in the uncanny valley for me.
- mlinksva 8y ago
  I want to be sold on Fuchsia/want it to succeed because of security. If it succeeds the UI will change a bunch of times, and there will be many UIs. Very happy to be corrected, but it seems to be the best hope since Midori was canned, and Fuchsia has the great advantage of being open source. By the way, I've casually looked for but not yet found a comparison of Midori and Fuchsia approaches based on what is known about each, maybe following structure of posts in http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/ http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/ ... I would love to read that!
  - snaky 8y ago
    > the great advantage of being open source In a name only, like Chromium and many other FAANG projects.
- egwynn 8y ago
  This is probably off-topic, but AFAIK “the uncanny valley” refers specifically to artificial representations of humans looking “too much but not quite enough” like real humans. I’m not sure how UI elements (which don’t typically depict humans) would fall into it.
  - JoshTriplett 8y ago
    Same concept. If a UI is completely different you'll know you need to learn a whole new way things work. If a UI is close to something you're used to, then you'll trip over every single difference.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    It's exactly the same concept. Almost lifelike humanoids look cold, eerie or sickly. Half-assed UI re-implementations give me the same impression - an underlying eerie perception that the program is sick somehow.
yegle 8y ago
The article also mentioned another commit: https://android-review.googlesource.com/c/platform/prebuilts/fuchsia_sdk/+/847438 https://android-review.googlesource.com/c/platform/prebuilts... It mentioned that commit was tested on walleye, aka Pixel 2.

71 points by MikusR 8y ago

xvilka 8y ago

Too bad they didn't write Fuchsia itself in Rust. You expect something better than plain old C++ for a project in 2018.

noahster11 8y ago
Although the majority of Fuchsia was written in C++, some of it does include Rust[0]. [0]: https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror?language=rust https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror?language=rust
- steveklabnik 8y ago
  Note that that only shows repos which are majority Rust, https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/garnet https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/garnet for example, is 12% Rust according to GitHub.
steveklabnik 8y ago
Fuchsia was started before Rust 1.0, and you still can't do OS dev on stable. It would have been cool, but I also don't think they inherently made the wrong choice. That said, there's a few hundred thousands of lines of Rust in there, and more on the way. The Fuchsia team also lets some of its team contribute back to Rust development, which is far more support than having the kernel part of a microkernel be in the language, IMO. (You can see this in Futures and async/await, which Fuchsia makes heavy use of, and the team has been very helpful in driving the design and implementation to completion.)
- xvilka 8y ago
  Yes, I am aware of their contribution since I follow the Rust development news. Thank you for the information anyway!

mitjak 8y ago

I'm not sold on Fuchsia. The UI harks back a little too much to Java native look-alike widgets which always fell in the uncanny valley for me.

mlinksva 8y ago
I want to be sold on Fuchsia/want it to succeed because of security. If it succeeds the UI will change a bunch of times, and there will be many UIs. Very happy to be corrected, but it seems to be the best hope since Midori was canned, and Fuchsia has the great advantage of being open source. By the way, I've casually looked for but not yet found a comparison of Midori and Fuchsia approaches based on what is known about each, maybe following structure of posts in http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/ http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/ ... I would love to read that!
- snaky 8y ago
  > the great advantage of being open source In a name only, like Chromium and many other FAANG projects.
egwynn 8y ago
This is probably off-topic, but AFAIK “the uncanny valley” refers specifically to artificial representations of humans looking “too much but not quite enough” like real humans. I’m not sure how UI elements (which don’t typically depict humans) would fall into it.
- JoshTriplett 8y ago
  Same concept. If a UI is completely different you'll know you need to learn a whole new way things work. If a UI is close to something you're used to, then you'll trip over every single difference.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  It's exactly the same concept. Almost lifelike humanoids look cold, eerie or sickly. Half-assed UI re-implementations give me the same impression - an underlying eerie perception that the program is sick somehow.

yegle 8y ago

The article also mentioned another commit: https://android-review.googlesource.com/c/platform/prebuilts/fuchsia_sdk/+/847438 https://android-review.googlesource.com/c/platform/prebuilts... It mentioned that commit was tested on walleye, aka Pixel 2.