4 ms·

In my experience, declaring the UI is not the hard part. Iterating 100s of times with minor tweaks to get the final appearance right is what usually kills me. U

In my experience, declaring the UI is not the hard part. Iterating 100s of times with minor tweaks to get the final appearance right is what usually kills me. Using something like this would requires a continuous edit,compile,run cycle that would start hurting once compile times reach >5 seconds. For all its faults, I really appreciate that web development comes with a console to inspect data and way to edit the widgets in real time and get immediate feedback.

CyberRabbi 5y ago
That’s a great requirement for any C++ GUI library. It must support a runtime GUI model. Ideally it would seamlessly support a compile-time model as well but I’m not sure there is a strong argument for the increased complexity in that case.
- thechao 5y ago
  I always thought that "array of ints" was a greatly unappreciated concept for declarative ... anything. They can be easily hot reloaded, they compile fast, and they're not terrible. OTOH, you'd just be reinventing the Lisp-wheel but in ints.
jdswain 5y ago
Like the original NeXT AppKit, where the UI was built from objects in memory, then stored on disk as archived objects. The objects could be manipulated with InterfaceBuilder and live tested. These concepts seem to have been lost along the way, to the point where they are not a part of modern NeXT->Mac->iOS development. But also they got harder to implement as UI's got more complex.
- drEv0 5y ago
  > stored on disk as archived objects This at least is still the case for iOS. > The objects could be manipulated with InterfaceBuilder and live tested. Is this anything like the new live previews with Canvas? I've only ever done iOS development but if this is the case that is amazing.
jcelerier 5y ago
Fast iteration times and iterative feedback are exactly the topic of my other project Lafajol: https://youtu.be/fMQvsqTDm3k https://youtu.be/fMQvsqTDm3k ; adding support for the UI thing is in-progress but so far I have compilation times around the 200ms mark for the kind of UI I target
algo_trader 5y ago
2 quick questions: Q1: is it mostly iterating to get precise visuals to get specific behaviours? Q2: is the toolchain/compiler/webpack turnaround speed a major factor?

CyberRabbi 5y ago

That’s a great requirement for any C++ GUI library. It must support a runtime GUI model. Ideally it would seamlessly support a compile-time model as well but I’m not sure there is a strong argument for the increased complexity in that case.

thechao 5y ago
I always thought that "array of ints" was a greatly unappreciated concept for declarative ... anything. They can be easily hot reloaded, they compile fast, and they're not terrible. OTOH, you'd just be reinventing the Lisp-wheel but in ints.

jdswain 5y ago

Like the original NeXT AppKit, where the UI was built from objects in memory, then stored on disk as archived objects. The objects could be manipulated with InterfaceBuilder and live tested. These concepts seem to have been lost along the way, to the point where they are not a part of modern NeXT->Mac->iOS development. But also they got harder to implement as UI's got more complex.

drEv0 5y ago
> stored on disk as archived objects This at least is still the case for iOS. > The objects could be manipulated with InterfaceBuilder and live tested. Is this anything like the new live previews with Canvas? I've only ever done iOS development but if this is the case that is amazing.

jcelerier 5y ago

Fast iteration times and iterative feedback are exactly the topic of my other project Lafajol: https://youtu.be/fMQvsqTDm3k https://youtu.be/fMQvsqTDm3k ; adding support for the UI thing is in-progress but so far I have compilation times around the 200ms mark for the kind of UI I target

algo_trader 5y ago

2 quick questions: Q1: is it mostly iterating to get precise visuals to get specific behaviours? Q2: is the toolchain/compiler/webpack turnaround speed a major factor?