4 ms·

Catalyst is never going to work. We tried it with our team back then and it's just utterly bad and depressing. This is the same issue currently with SwiftUI mul

Catalyst is never going to work. We tried it with our team back then and it's just utterly bad and depressing. This is the same issue currently with SwiftUI multiplatform, SwiftUI's button and textfields on iOS looks so good but on macOS it's pure comedy.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
In my experience, there's never been (and, I suspect, never will be) a true "cross-platform" system. There's just no substitute for platform native. I include hybrid systems, and frameworks like Qt in that statement. Even though I can write a UI in SwiftUI that will work on all platforms, I have no illusions that it is something that I could ship to customers, with a straight face.
- AdamN 4y ago
  The only way cross-platform works is if both platforms are in lockstep with the interfaces they supply. Of course that will slow down development on both platofrms. In some cases, this works great right now for mature interfaces and you can use certain tools on FreeBSD, Ubuntu Linux, and RedHat Linux interchangeably because they are using consistent interfaces. Where the interfaces aren't strongly consistent (or there are leaky abstractions), then it all falls apart.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  >In my experience, there's never been (and, I suspect, never will be) a true "cross-platform" system. Chrome, otherwise known as Electron. It's not great, it's fucking terrible actually. But it's cross-platform, it gets shit done, and it's clearly good enough (relatively).
  - shakow 4y ago
    That's desktop only. We already have Qt playing in the same ballpark, and doing both better and worse depending how you look at it. Nice cross-smartphone-tablet-desktop however is a no-app's land.
    - jitl 4y ago
      Webview works for this. Chrome / Electron for desktop, native Webview app on iOS and Android respectively. It’s not as good as fully native; but it does enable excellent code sharing as well as shipping new versions of your app as fast as you can deploy them. That’s how we build Notion anyway.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    Well, I’m not gonna get into a back and forth over this. Lots of “Sacred Cows and Third Rails.”[0] I am personally not comfortable, shipping “meh” to my end-users, but I’m also quite aware that my methodology is not a money-maker, so it’s probably just sour grapes, on my part. [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/sacred-cows-and-third-rails/ https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/sacred-cows-and-thir...
jitl 4y ago
As a hobby Mac developer, SwiftUI is amazing and makes it so much faster for me compared to AppKit directly. But maybe you are trying too much to share views without specializing them for each platform? Apple does some layout for you but not enough. You’ll need to have a bunch of Mac specific code but you can get quite good results. The button looks like a Mac button… but it won’t feel right as a full-width row like you’d have on iOS.
- lawgimenez 4y ago
  Yes, I agree SwiftUI is amazing and looking forward to not having to deal with AppKit anymore. I was just using the default buttons and textfields without much customization but still awkward to look on macOS.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

In my experience, there's never been (and, I suspect, never will be) a true "cross-platform" system. There's just no substitute for platform native. I include hybrid systems, and frameworks like Qt in that statement. Even though I can write a UI in SwiftUI that will work on all platforms, I have no illusions that it is something that I could ship to customers, with a straight face.

AdamN 4y ago
The only way cross-platform works is if both platforms are in lockstep with the interfaces they supply. Of course that will slow down development on both platofrms. In some cases, this works great right now for mature interfaces and you can use certain tools on FreeBSD, Ubuntu Linux, and RedHat Linux interchangeably because they are using consistent interfaces. Where the interfaces aren't strongly consistent (or there are leaky abstractions), then it all falls apart.
Dalewyn 4y ago
>In my experience, there's never been (and, I suspect, never will be) a true "cross-platform" system. Chrome, otherwise known as Electron. It's not great, it's fucking terrible actually. But it's cross-platform, it gets shit done, and it's clearly good enough (relatively).
- shakow 4y ago
  That's desktop only. We already have Qt playing in the same ballpark, and doing both better and worse depending how you look at it. Nice cross-smartphone-tablet-desktop however is a no-app's land.
  - jitl 4y ago
    Webview works for this. Chrome / Electron for desktop, native Webview app on iOS and Android respectively. It’s not as good as fully native; but it does enable excellent code sharing as well as shipping new versions of your app as fast as you can deploy them. That’s how we build Notion anyway.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  Well, I’m not gonna get into a back and forth over this. Lots of “Sacred Cows and Third Rails.”[0] I am personally not comfortable, shipping “meh” to my end-users, but I’m also quite aware that my methodology is not a money-maker, so it’s probably just sour grapes, on my part. [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/sacred-cows-and-third-rails/ https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/sacred-cows-and-thir...

jitl 4y ago

As a hobby Mac developer, SwiftUI is amazing and makes it so much faster for me compared to AppKit directly. But maybe you are trying too much to share views without specializing them for each platform? Apple does some layout for you but not enough. You’ll need to have a bunch of Mac specific code but you can get quite good results. The button looks like a Mac button… but it won’t feel right as a full-width row like you’d have on iOS.

lawgimenez 4y ago
Yes, I agree SwiftUI is amazing and looking forward to not having to deal with AppKit anymore. I was just using the default buttons and textfields without much customization but still awkward to look on macOS.