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They wouldn't, IMO. Skia is robust, has a large feature set, has exhaustive automated tests, is well maintained, and portable. Even if this library is "faster"

They wouldn't, IMO. Skia is robust, has a large feature set, has exhaustive automated tests, is well maintained, and portable. Even if this library is "faster" (for its specific use cases), Skia is well optimized and used in lots of performance-sensitive software.

postalrat 6y ago
"Faster" could also mean running at an acceptable speed on hardware where skia would be too slow.
zepto 6y ago
Skia also has a relatively unstable api, is hard to build, and is dependent on Google.
- BearOso 6y ago
  I concur. The documentation is very incomplete. I know it can do a lot of stuff, but I wouldn’t know how to make it do it. It doesn’t seem to be intended for wide use, more like “here’s what we use, it’s open source, do whatever, but we’re not going to help you.”
- kllrnohj 6y ago
  Fair criticisms but it's not like Fast UI Draw is any different on any of those. Unless you're calling its API stable because the library has been abandoned, but in that case you could also just never update your copy of Skia, too.
  - zepto 6y ago
    I’m not suggesting that FastUiDraw is better. Just that ‘use skia’ isn’t a particularly good answer either. I’m somewhat dismayed that Linux doesn’t seem to have a solid 2d graphics library.
    - kllrnohj 6y ago
      That's... not a fair representation of things? Skia is a great option and works well on Linux. So does QT for that matter. Cairo is no slouch, either.
      - zepto 6y ago
        Cairo is great, but apparently “dead”. I absolutely grant that Cairo would be fine. Skia works well but has an unstable api, hard to interested build, and limited language bindings, is poorly documented and is controlled/developed by Google. QT has a giant set of dependencies and no independent graphics library.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
      s/Linux/C/ A few years ago there was talk of the Cairo API (not necessarily the Cairo library implementation of that API) being adopted as part of a C language standard. That seems not to have happened. Consequently, if you program in C or in a language that depends on C libraries to get stuff done, there's still no go-to library/API for 2D drawing. Also, the scope of "2d graphics" is not fixed either. Does it include a scene graph or not?
    - BearOso 6y ago
      As a Linux user, it unfortunately doesn't have a definitive anything. Say you want to write a GUI app. On Windows, you've got Win32. It's old, but it'll still work and look new. MacOS you have Cocoa. Linux, you have Xlib. Wait, that doesn't provide enough. We have to use a toolkit, like Gtk or Qt. Which one if we want to look integrated? How do we integrate 3D APIs? Then there's Wayland. You want to use that instead because X is deprecated. But there's no extensive API--it's basically only a way of putting rectangles on the screen. You have nothing to get you started unless you stick hard to Gtk, Qt, or do really rudimentary graphics, and cross-compatibility is really ugly.

postalrat 6y ago

"Faster" could also mean running at an acceptable speed on hardware where skia would be too slow.

zepto 6y ago

Skia also has a relatively unstable api, is hard to build, and is dependent on Google.

BearOso 6y ago
I concur. The documentation is very incomplete. I know it can do a lot of stuff, but I wouldn’t know how to make it do it. It doesn’t seem to be intended for wide use, more like “here’s what we use, it’s open source, do whatever, but we’re not going to help you.”
kllrnohj 6y ago
Fair criticisms but it's not like Fast UI Draw is any different on any of those. Unless you're calling its API stable because the library has been abandoned, but in that case you could also just never update your copy of Skia, too.
- zepto 6y ago
  I’m not suggesting that FastUiDraw is better. Just that ‘use skia’ isn’t a particularly good answer either. I’m somewhat dismayed that Linux doesn’t seem to have a solid 2d graphics library.
  - kllrnohj 6y ago
    That's... not a fair representation of things? Skia is a great option and works well on Linux. So does QT for that matter. Cairo is no slouch, either.
    - zepto 6y ago
      Cairo is great, but apparently “dead”. I absolutely grant that Cairo would be fine. Skia works well but has an unstable api, hard to interested build, and limited language bindings, is poorly documented and is controlled/developed by Google. QT has a giant set of dependencies and no independent graphics library.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    s/Linux/C/ A few years ago there was talk of the Cairo API (not necessarily the Cairo library implementation of that API) being adopted as part of a C language standard. That seems not to have happened. Consequently, if you program in C or in a language that depends on C libraries to get stuff done, there's still no go-to library/API for 2D drawing. Also, the scope of "2d graphics" is not fixed either. Does it include a scene graph or not?
  - BearOso 6y ago
    As a Linux user, it unfortunately doesn't have a definitive anything. Say you want to write a GUI app. On Windows, you've got Win32. It's old, but it'll still work and look new. MacOS you have Cocoa. Linux, you have Xlib. Wait, that doesn't provide enough. We have to use a toolkit, like Gtk or Qt. Which one if we want to look integrated? How do we integrate 3D APIs? Then there's Wayland. You want to use that instead because X is deprecated. But there's no extensive API--it's basically only a way of putting rectangles on the screen. You have nothing to get you started unless you stick hard to Gtk, Qt, or do really rudimentary graphics, and cross-compatibility is really ugly.