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The new wasm support in Kotlin is pretty exciting. There's an experimental version of compose multiplatform that supports targeting browsers that will be using

The new wasm support in Kotlin is pretty exciting. There's an experimental version of compose multiplatform that supports targeting browsers that will be using WASM. Compose multiplatform is basically Google's Jetpack Compose for Android with added support for other platforms. As of a few days ago, IOS support in alpha and will hit beta next year. Android and desktop support are now stable. Once that stuff stabilizes, you can write UI applications that basically work on any platform. The wasm compiler will roll out along with kotlin 2.0 which is the next major release for Kotlin and features a new compiler (k2). This looks like it should happen early next year. k2 is currently available in beta release and you can enable it in kotlin 1.9.x. The nice thing with the Kotlin multiplatform ecosystem is that there are already a lot of libraries that work across the various platforms. So, the wasm compiler will rapidly become part of that and inherit a lot of nice libraries. Mostly all that takes is for builds to be reconfigured to target that ecosystem and implementing some platform specific behavior where that is missing. Another interesting thing in this space is using and linking libraries written in different libraries. For example a lot of the platform specifics are probably going to be dependent on e.g. C or Rust libraries that are already available. In many cases these might be the same libraries that Kotlin native uses.

leononame 3y ago
How does Compose Multiplatform on web work? Does it paint on Canvas like flutter? Do you use the same widgets on Desktop, web, iOS and Android? I understand that on Android it's native. Does it emulate other styles on other platform? I guess, my question is mostly: How is the _feel_ of a Compose Multiplatform App on non-Android platforms. Dart on web e.g. feels extremely janky to me, so does electron on Desktop. Dart on Desktop is ok, but all the applications tend to be very App-like with huge buttons and whitespace that just make it feel more like it was an Android App running in an emulator rather than an actual native app. Would you recommend Kotlin as a language for new projects?
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Compose web indeed uses a canvas and just like the Android and IOS versions it renders using low level graphics libraries such as cairo. I think the intention is indeed to have the same core components across all platforms and indeed emulate the look of the native platform. This is similar to what things like flutter do, which also depends on cairo if I'm not mistaken. There is also compose web html which seems to be not getting a lot of attention lately. That depends on kotlin-js and works with the dom tree. But for obvious reasons it's a lot less easy to use the same components there. I think it's too early to tell how it will perform, look, and feel on every platform. This is also a bit of a function of how much effort and design you put in. Using wasm in the browser should help with performance though. Dart might copy that trick as well. I think they currently cross compile to javascript. Kotlin as a language is more than fine. Anything server related or Android related, it's a great language and I vastly prefer it to Java at this point (27 years of experience). I personally use it for web development (kotlin-js in the browser) and server development (spring-boot, ktor). IOS native development for libraries is also a popular option for sharing code across IOS and Android. That just got promoted to a stable release. There are some gotchas with interoperability with e.g. Swift and Flutter from what I understand. But it's basically very stable and workable at this point and fairly widely used. Compose multiplatform is not quite ready yet. The Android and Desktop side work fine and are stable. But the rest is a work in progress. Compose web is going to be a while because even the compiler isn't ready yet. Compose IOS looks like it should get to a usable stage in the next six months or so. Stable is probably at least a year out for that.
  - yurishimo 3y ago
    How does this work in regards to accessibility? I think historically, canvas has not had a great track record as it's essentially a black box. While it might be okay for certain use cases (intranet, one-off tools, etc), I don't see how this would ever take off on platforms with a public user facing application. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/canvas#accessibility_concerns https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ca...
- usrusr 3y ago
  Compose on android is native as in it takes full responsibility for its canvas, not native as in react native which tries to operate pre-existing controls as much as possible.
- xster 3y ago
  > Dart on web e.g. feels extremely janky to me That's what this WasmGC is for :) Dart on web runs as dart2js whereas other platforms like Android/iOS/macOS/Linux/Windows runs as AOT arm64 or x86_64 code. Dart on wasm (as shown in demo in the article) will run better than transpiled JavaScript.
singularity2001 3y ago
Every time I tried it my enthusiasm got curbed by the gradle mess.
- rpodraza 3y ago
  Gradle is fine once you understand how it works. Admittedly, it takes a bit of time to get used to, but it's very customizable.
  - flohofwoe 3y ago
    Gradle might be fine compared to other Java build tools, but when stepping outside the Java world it feels like a leftover from the 90's... and that's the same for pretty much anything else related to Android development, which is curious because Android didn't even exist yet in the 90's ;)
    - kaba0 3y ago
      Which build tool is better? The language-specific ones are pretty much useless for a more involved build that is cross-platform, let alone uses multiple languages. Gradle is generic, which does increase its surface area, but there is not many alternatives that are also fast and correct: there is bazel, and a new thing I very like: mill. But not much else is there.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - holoduke 3y ago
    Gradle is almost a language itself. I have never seen a project where teams didnt run into gradle hell and spend hours on every lib update to fix gradle issues. Its just too damn complex and most of the time nobody is really an expert in it.
    - tubthumper8 3y ago
      Yes I believe Gradle is a DSL based on the Groovy programming language

leononame 3y ago

How does Compose Multiplatform on web work? Does it paint on Canvas like flutter? Do you use the same widgets on Desktop, web, iOS and Android? I understand that on Android it's native. Does it emulate other styles on other platform? I guess, my question is mostly: How is the _feel_ of a Compose Multiplatform App on non-Android platforms. Dart on web e.g. feels extremely janky to me, so does electron on Desktop. Dart on Desktop is ok, but all the applications tend to be very App-like with huge buttons and whitespace that just make it feel more like it was an Android App running in an emulator rather than an actual native app. Would you recommend Kotlin as a language for new projects?

jillesvangurp 3y ago
Compose web indeed uses a canvas and just like the Android and IOS versions it renders using low level graphics libraries such as cairo. I think the intention is indeed to have the same core components across all platforms and indeed emulate the look of the native platform. This is similar to what things like flutter do, which also depends on cairo if I'm not mistaken. There is also compose web html which seems to be not getting a lot of attention lately. That depends on kotlin-js and works with the dom tree. But for obvious reasons it's a lot less easy to use the same components there. I think it's too early to tell how it will perform, look, and feel on every platform. This is also a bit of a function of how much effort and design you put in. Using wasm in the browser should help with performance though. Dart might copy that trick as well. I think they currently cross compile to javascript. Kotlin as a language is more than fine. Anything server related or Android related, it's a great language and I vastly prefer it to Java at this point (27 years of experience). I personally use it for web development (kotlin-js in the browser) and server development (spring-boot, ktor). IOS native development for libraries is also a popular option for sharing code across IOS and Android. That just got promoted to a stable release. There are some gotchas with interoperability with e.g. Swift and Flutter from what I understand. But it's basically very stable and workable at this point and fairly widely used. Compose multiplatform is not quite ready yet. The Android and Desktop side work fine and are stable. But the rest is a work in progress. Compose web is going to be a while because even the compiler isn't ready yet. Compose IOS looks like it should get to a usable stage in the next six months or so. Stable is probably at least a year out for that.
- yurishimo 3y ago
  How does this work in regards to accessibility? I think historically, canvas has not had a great track record as it's essentially a black box. While it might be okay for certain use cases (intranet, one-off tools, etc), I don't see how this would ever take off on platforms with a public user facing application. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/canvas#accessibility_concerns https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ca...
usrusr 3y ago
Compose on android is native as in it takes full responsibility for its canvas, not native as in react native which tries to operate pre-existing controls as much as possible.
xster 3y ago
> Dart on web e.g. feels extremely janky to me That's what this WasmGC is for :) Dart on web runs as dart2js whereas other platforms like Android/iOS/macOS/Linux/Windows runs as AOT arm64 or x86_64 code. Dart on wasm (as shown in demo in the article) will run better than transpiled JavaScript.

singularity2001 3y ago

Every time I tried it my enthusiasm got curbed by the gradle mess.

rpodraza 3y ago
Gradle is fine once you understand how it works. Admittedly, it takes a bit of time to get used to, but it's very customizable.
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  Gradle might be fine compared to other Java build tools, but when stepping outside the Java world it feels like a leftover from the 90's... and that's the same for pretty much anything else related to Android development, which is curious because Android didn't even exist yet in the 90's ;)
  - kaba0 3y ago
    Which build tool is better? The language-specific ones are pretty much useless for a more involved build that is cross-platform, let alone uses multiple languages. Gradle is generic, which does increase its surface area, but there is not many alternatives that are also fast and correct: there is bazel, and a new thing I very like: mill. But not much else is there.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- holoduke 3y ago
  Gradle is almost a language itself. I have never seen a project where teams didnt run into gradle hell and spend hours on every lib update to fix gradle issues. Its just too damn complex and most of the time nobody is really an expert in it.
  - tubthumper8 3y ago
    Yes I believe Gradle is a DSL based on the Groovy programming language