7 ms·

I'm not familiar with Rust or WebAssembly, but isn't Flutter more appropriate specifically for such applications?

by gozzoo 1y ago

mathgeek 1y ago
While it's possible to use Flutter for _some_ smart TVs and the like, it's not generally at the top of the recommendations.
- j45 1y ago
  Happy to learn what might be - especially from the one codebase to everywhere perspective.
ainiriand 1y ago
No, it is not.
echelon 1y ago
Rust is finding itself everywhere. It's fantastic on the server. It's shaping up to be fantastic for UI. It's fast, ergonomic, and the code has fewer defects than code written in other languages. (Google did a study on this.) It's not as unapproachable as the memes make it seem. It's no harder or less productive than Java or Golang to write. (Google also did a study on this.) The Rust WASM deploy story is sublime and is going to help it take over the world.
- hu3 1y ago
  Is this satire? I have difficulty identifying those.
  - ghurtado 1y ago
    I only hope that it is, but you never know.
- CyanLite2 1y ago
  WASM Components levels the playing field across all languages. You can mix and match a C# Blazor component and a Rust component, and a Python component and they all compile to WASM and runs at equal speed.
  - echelon 1y ago
    Those other languages will have a GC.
    - hu3 1y ago
      not Zig
  - nilslice 1y ago
    sounds like someone hasn’t actually tried or benchmarked this :)
6SixTy 1y ago
Wikipedia says that Flutter can be transpiled to WebAssembly for web deployment.
bickfordb 1y ago
It's a similar effort. Flutter is a cross platform Dart UI framework that compiles to WASM for the web and also has Android/iOS build targets. The web version can be laggy on trivial examples. I would guess this younger Rust framework is less featureful than Flutter but is more efficient/faster (one of the stated goals in the article).
jeroenhd 1y ago
My experience with Flutter applications in the browser is absolutely terrible. Rather unfortunate, as the things Flutter promised would make it excellent for web applications like these. The concept behind the way these platform renders is very similar, so the new Amazon UI may be terrible as well, but I wouldn't expect whoever made the GUI framework they use now to make the same mistakes Flutter made. Edit: after looking into this some more, it looks like the approach Amazon took is quite different from most Rust UI libraries. They have written their own framework that basically re-implements React but entirely on the WebAssembly side. I don't think it works by throwing a <canvas> onto the screen and implementing a browser rendering engine in JS+WASM like Flutter does. They also seem to target native code where they do all the rendering themselves, but probably faster because they control all the layers and don't need to build a general-purpose UI engine for their video player with extra steps.
- mixmastamyk 1y ago
  Why is a browser required for "living room devices?"
  - mathgeek 1y ago
    From the article: > … but also in browsers because some living room devices today have just an HTML5 browser and don't even have flash space big enough to put our native C++ engine.
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    Ask the people buying and making those devices, not the people trying to get their services to work on them. The answer is probably "because the alternative is worse". I too would rather make a single web app than separate Tizen/tvOS/WebOS/Android/whatever Roku runs apps.
    - mixmastamyk 1y ago
      I suppose, but Flutter on a Rasberry Pi-like device is compelling as well.
- 1y ago

I'm not familiar with Rust or WebAssembly, but isn't Flutter more appropriate specifically for such applications?

by gozzoo 1y ago

I'm not familiar with Rust or WebAssembly, but isn't Flutter more appropriate specifically for such applications?

While it's possible to use Flutter for _some_ smart TVs and the like, it's not generally at the top of the recommendations.

j45 1y ago
Happy to learn what might be - especially from the one codebase to everywhere perspective.

ainiriand 1y ago

No, it is not.

echelon 1y ago

Rust is finding itself everywhere. It's fantastic on the server. It's shaping up to be fantastic for UI. It's fast, ergonomic, and the code has fewer defects than code written in other languages. (Google did a study on this.) It's not as unapproachable as the memes make it seem. It's no harder or less productive than Java or Golang to write. (Google also did a study on this.) The Rust WASM deploy story is sublime and is going to help it take over the world.

hu3 1y ago
Is this satire? I have difficulty identifying those.
- ghurtado 1y ago
  I only hope that it is, but you never know.
CyanLite2 1y ago
WASM Components levels the playing field across all languages. You can mix and match a C# Blazor component and a Rust component, and a Python component and they all compile to WASM and runs at equal speed.
- echelon 1y ago
  Those other languages will have a GC.
  - hu3 1y ago
    not Zig
- nilslice 1y ago
  sounds like someone hasn’t actually tried or benchmarked this :)

6SixTy 1y ago

Wikipedia says that Flutter can be transpiled to WebAssembly for web deployment.

bickfordb 1y ago

It's a similar effort. Flutter is a cross platform Dart UI framework that compiles to WASM for the web and also has Android/iOS build targets. The web version can be laggy on trivial examples. I would guess this younger Rust framework is less featureful than Flutter but is more efficient/faster (one of the stated goals in the article).

jeroenhd 1y ago

My experience with Flutter applications in the browser is absolutely terrible. Rather unfortunate, as the things Flutter promised would make it excellent for web applications like these. The concept behind the way these platform renders is very similar, so the new Amazon UI may be terrible as well, but I wouldn't expect whoever made the GUI framework they use now to make the same mistakes Flutter made. Edit: after looking into this some more, it looks like the approach Amazon took is quite different from most Rust UI libraries. They have written their own framework that basically re-implements React but entirely on the WebAssembly side. I don't think it works by throwing a <canvas> onto the screen and implementing a browser rendering engine in JS+WASM like Flutter does. They also seem to target native code where they do all the rendering themselves, but probably faster because they control all the layers and don't need to build a general-purpose UI engine for their video player with extra steps.

mixmastamyk 1y ago
Why is a browser required for "living room devices?"
- mathgeek 1y ago
  From the article: > … but also in browsers because some living room devices today have just an HTML5 browser and don't even have flash space big enough to put our native C++ engine.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  Ask the people buying and making those devices, not the people trying to get their services to work on them. The answer is probably "because the alternative is worse". I too would rather make a single web app than separate Tizen/tvOS/WebOS/Android/whatever Roku runs apps.
  - mixmastamyk 1y ago
    I suppose, but Flutter on a Rasberry Pi-like device is compelling as well.
1y ago