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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, bu

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.

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.