10 ms·

Revisting the gui.cs framework

121 points by atesti 7y ago

mikekchar 7y ago
I don't know why, but I find it amusing to see Miguel de Icaza say: " Hopefully I will beat my previous record of two users." It makes me feel a lot better about my catalogue of completely unknown software ;-)
pjmlp 7y ago
Turbo Vision is back! :) (yes I know, old joke)
- soapdog 7y ago
  I still miss it...
  - copperx 7y ago
    I do too. It was incredibly amazing (IDEs were built on top of it!) and ncurses falls short as a replacement.
- homarp 7y ago
  http://wiki.freepascal.org/Free_Vision http://wiki.freepascal.org/Free_Vision :)
  - cmroanirgo 7y ago
    Nice. It makes me reminisce about my first accounting package written in Turbo Pascal (which I might add, survived y2k without a line of code being changed).
vaylian 7y ago
I still don't understand what C#/.NET brings to the table that the Linux ecosystem is lacking. All these years it seemed to me that MdI was understanding something that I don't know about. I really appreciate all the efforts that MdI has put into Mono and I appreciate the fact that we have .NET core for Linux but I completely fail to understand what the practical benefits are. C# seems to be a more flexible version of Java that is suffering from feature creep. I have not seen any notable .NET libraries that I want to take advantage of. Maybe I am too deep in my Linux filter bubble. Can someone give me some examples of where .NET on Linux really shines?
- Riverheart 7y ago
  There are a lot of people that are tied to C#/.Net that would never consider Linux as a target if not for the cross platform nature of core. It's the same reason Electron apps are on Linux. They'd be Windows/Mac only if not for the ease of being cross platform.
  - vaylian 7y ago
    So your point is that MdI wanted Linux to be not left out while .NET was on the rise? That seems plausible.
    - jacobush 7y ago
      Now you are thinking about Miguels motivations. That may something different entirely from the market forces which propelled his projects to success.
    - Riverheart 7y ago
      It's also a benefit to existing Microsoft customers because it let's them utilize their existing personnel to expand their audience without costly training or hiring on people who develop exclusively for the target platform. That's the benefit that Xamarin puts forth regarding mobile development. With the rise of Azure, Microsoft cares less about Windows being the dominant server ecosystem than being the choice for server hosting and having a competitive ecosystem of tooling.
- vnorilo 7y ago
  Not that it would be a game changer, but F# is a pretty nice language. https://fsharp.org/use/linux/ https://fsharp.org/use/linux/
  - vaylian 7y ago
    True. Caml-like languages are nice (hello Rust!). One of the benefits of the CLR is that it can support virtually any programming language that can compile to bytecode. But I do not see that being a major thing. Yes, there are various Iron$language implementations and Clojure is also available on the CLR. But from my perspective most projects are C# and then there are just very few F# projects.
nizmow 7y ago
I wonder if it would be possible to extend this API to have a "GTK" or "Qt" backend, for simple GUI apps.
- jacobush 7y ago
  Must be... in fact, it may be a great idea! This API must be simpler, so it must be much more doable than the other way around.
  - nizmow 7y ago
    I think I'll take a look at it, my guess is the layouts might be tricky to translate but with some sensible hard coding perhaps not too bad. Sadly the state of C#'s Qt and GTK libraries weren't great last I looked.
    - devbat8712 7y ago
      Gtk# is... OK. I've used it a little bit and for the most part it implements everything the C/C++ version does.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Miguel demoed a Xamarin.Forms implementation using it, which is kind of the other way around.
josephn 7y ago
I have a project idea and I've been trying to find the best way to implement ncurses user interface/experience for mobile screens. If anybody is interested or can offer help/advice them please get in touch. https://gitlab.com/swipe2e https://gitlab.com/swipe2e
asveikau 7y ago
curses/ncurses is a really fun library, simple to get going and can produce some good results. I think it's underutilized these days.
starik36 7y ago
This library needs a Forms Designer like in Visual Basic for DOS asap!

121 points by atesti 7y ago

I don't know why, but I find it amusing to see Miguel de Icaza say: " Hopefully I will beat my previous record of two users." It makes me feel a lot better about my catalogue of completely unknown software ;-)

pjmlp 7y ago

Turbo Vision is back! :) (yes I know, old joke)

soapdog 7y ago
I still miss it...
- copperx 7y ago
  I do too. It was incredibly amazing (IDEs were built on top of it!) and ncurses falls short as a replacement.
homarp 7y ago
http://wiki.freepascal.org/Free_Vision http://wiki.freepascal.org/Free_Vision :)
- cmroanirgo 7y ago
  Nice. It makes me reminisce about my first accounting package written in Turbo Pascal (which I might add, survived y2k without a line of code being changed).

vaylian 7y ago

I still don't understand what C#/.NET brings to the table that the Linux ecosystem is lacking. All these years it seemed to me that MdI was understanding something that I don't know about. I really appreciate all the efforts that MdI has put into Mono and I appreciate the fact that we have .NET core for Linux but I completely fail to understand what the practical benefits are. C# seems to be a more flexible version of Java that is suffering from feature creep. I have not seen any notable .NET libraries that I want to take advantage of. Maybe I am too deep in my Linux filter bubble. Can someone give me some examples of where .NET on Linux really shines?

Riverheart 7y ago
There are a lot of people that are tied to C#/.Net that would never consider Linux as a target if not for the cross platform nature of core. It's the same reason Electron apps are on Linux. They'd be Windows/Mac only if not for the ease of being cross platform.
- vaylian 7y ago
  So your point is that MdI wanted Linux to be not left out while .NET was on the rise? That seems plausible.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    Now you are thinking about Miguels motivations. That may something different entirely from the market forces which propelled his projects to success.
  - Riverheart 7y ago
    It's also a benefit to existing Microsoft customers because it let's them utilize their existing personnel to expand their audience without costly training or hiring on people who develop exclusively for the target platform. That's the benefit that Xamarin puts forth regarding mobile development. With the rise of Azure, Microsoft cares less about Windows being the dominant server ecosystem than being the choice for server hosting and having a competitive ecosystem of tooling.
vnorilo 7y ago
Not that it would be a game changer, but F# is a pretty nice language. https://fsharp.org/use/linux/ https://fsharp.org/use/linux/
- vaylian 7y ago
  True. Caml-like languages are nice (hello Rust!). One of the benefits of the CLR is that it can support virtually any programming language that can compile to bytecode. But I do not see that being a major thing. Yes, there are various Iron$language implementations and Clojure is also available on the CLR. But from my perspective most projects are C# and then there are just very few F# projects.

nizmow 7y ago

I wonder if it would be possible to extend this API to have a "GTK" or "Qt" backend, for simple GUI apps.

jacobush 7y ago
Must be... in fact, it may be a great idea! This API must be simpler, so it must be much more doable than the other way around.
- nizmow 7y ago
  I think I'll take a look at it, my guess is the layouts might be tricky to translate but with some sensible hard coding perhaps not too bad. Sadly the state of C#'s Qt and GTK libraries weren't great last I looked.
  - devbat8712 7y ago
    Gtk# is... OK. I've used it a little bit and for the most part it implements everything the C/C++ version does.
pjmlp 7y ago
Miguel demoed a Xamarin.Forms implementation using it, which is kind of the other way around.

josephn 7y ago

I have a project idea and I've been trying to find the best way to implement ncurses user interface/experience for mobile screens. If anybody is interested or can offer help/advice them please get in touch. https://gitlab.com/swipe2e https://gitlab.com/swipe2e

asveikau 7y ago

curses/ncurses is a really fun library, simple to get going and can produce some good results. I think it's underutilized these days.

starik36 7y ago

This library needs a Forms Designer like in Visual Basic for DOS asap!