7 ms·

SolidOak, an IDE written in Rust

99 points by neverminder 12y ago

616c 12y ago
I know people complain about the negativity on HN, so this is a minor nitpick. I have been an on-and-off Linux and UNIX user for a while, but ... > It's just a standalone executable that will run anywhere without being installed. See the Releases page for pre-built Linux x64 binaries (you need Rust and GTK+ 3.10 or above installed). Is this not contradictory? Granted, statically linking GTK, 2 or 3, must be ridiculous, but would this still be considered a standalone binary? Granted, I think this might be a variant of libc needs to link to and I am just confused, but I am curious what more knowledgeable people think. Anyway, I am not dismissing this project though. It sounds very cool. I might give it a shot. FYI to everyone, racer is also a core component of making Rust hacking on Emacs wonderful, from what I hear. I have yet to be Rustacean. https://github.com/phildawes/racer#emacs-integration https://github.com/phildawes/racer#emacs-integration
- jscheel 12y ago
  Well, that, and anywhere realistically means anywhere except the most widely-used operating system in the world. Of course, the dev has absolutely no responsibility to provide that, I just thought it was funny.
  - kenbellows 12y ago
    I think he meant anywhere within a filesystem, not anywhere in the world or on any OS
  - ben0x539 12y ago
    Why would you want to run an IDE on Android? Most of those don't even come with real keyboards!
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- kenbellows 12y ago
  I read "standalone executable that will run anywhere without being installed" to mean that it's a single executable file that you can move around, it doesn't drop a mess of `.so`s or config files all over your system, and it doesn't need to be in any particular directory to work properly, but NOT that it has no dependencies. As you alluded to, it's nearly impossible to package any non-trivial program (especially anything with a GUI) into a single executable with every dependency statically linked; it would be enormous and unwieldy. So defining "standalone" in terms of the number of new files entering your system (only one) is, IMHO, the more useful definition.
  - gw 12y ago
    Yeah that's a good way of putting it (I'm the developer). I intend to bundle the GTK libraries in the Mac version when I'm ready to start pre-building it.
    - 616c 12y ago
      I just want to say I am way below your skill level, and I mean no disrepect. I see a lot of standalone (especially playing with Haskell binaries, like pandoc). To use one such example, even Pandoc and company are not even self-contained. The problem is I am not sure where other people in Linux communities draw the line. It is not a really serious thing. Still I applaud you and other Rustaceans. It is nice to see fully formed GUI apps in Rust, because it makes it look to outsiders that news of stabilizing releases means people are really investing building useful tools.
ivoras 12y ago
The one thing which nags me about Rust is the amount of what seem like weird syntax choices, deliberately different from most popular programming languages. See e.g. line 14 in https://github.com/oakes/SolidOak/blob/master/src/ffi.rs https://github.com/oakes/SolidOak/blob/master/src/ffi.rs : let mut fds : [c_int; 2] = [0; 2]; Why not declare the array type as c_int[2]? And why use semicolons instead of commas? There are enough such "wtf?" moments that it causes pause and a sense of weirdness while reading Rust code, if the reader is familiar with other C-like languages (which is not to say that Rust itself is C-like).
- vertex-four 12y ago
  > Why not declare the array type as c_int[2]? Because a design decision was made that the type should look like the instantiation of that type. Same with structs and enums. > And why use semicolons instead of commas? Because this is "two elements both containing 0", not the array [0, 2]. Semicolons are used for that.
- killercup 12y ago
  > if the reader is familiar with other C-like languages I like to think that Rust wants you to be familiar with C and ML syntax and philosophies before getting comfortable :) The array type syntax you quoted is a bit like Haskell's `[Char]` syntax with a fixed-length property bolted on. You are right, though, that semicolon looks a bit weird. I guess using commas was not an option because the same syntax on the right hand side of the `=` means `[0, 0]`, i.e. two elements which are 0.
- frewsxcv 12y ago
  [0; 2] and [0, 2] are both valid in Rust, but mean different things. http://doc.rust-lang.org/reference.html#array-expressions http://doc.rust-lang.org/reference.html#array-expressions I suggest learning the language before making an attempt to criticize it.
  - ivoras 12y ago
    > I suggest learning the language before making an attempt to criticize it. I will learn it. I like the semantics of Rust, it's a thing which needed to be attempted. What I am suggesting is, that for a language to be popular and accepted in already existing communities, it should have as little syntactic differences from the standards already present in those communities (or more elaborate: that things with similar semantics should have similar syntax). This does not preclude adding both new semantics and new syntax to the language. In this case, I think the "target audience" for Rust is the crowd already familiar with C and C++, and languages (which are in many cases superior to C and C++) with significant differences such as LISP, Haskell, Erlang are vastly less popular compared to C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript. As a counter-example to my claim I recognize Python, which succeeded even if it was radically different and even today has some serious issues (for me, it is its performance and the GIL in CPython). IMO, it succeeded precisely because it was radically different than mainstream languages before it, so it didn't cause "mind crosstalk" issues you get when you encounter something which seems familiar but actually isn't. Of course, this is inconsequential, it really boils down to arguing about personal taste and preferences. And even if I am right, if the semantics of Rust become popular, I'm sure that a more C-like language will evolve from it (maybe called Crust? :D ). If I am wrong, Rust will live long and prosper as it is.
killercup 12y ago
This looks pretty cool. It's nice to see there are working GTK3 bindings for Rust. It'll be interesting to see how many IDE features will be implemented. Currently it seems like a distribution of NeoVim + directory tree + Racer (Rust Autocompletion).
swah 12y ago
Windows is not supported.... Sublime being on all platforms is what made it so huge. There are developers on WIndodws machines, and because they like it!
- mattdeboard 12y ago
  SublimeText isn't an IDE
  - bjohnso5 12y ago
    I think that's debatable... with the currently humongous list of available plugins and it's project-focused interface, I don't think it's much of a stretch at this point to identify it as a lightweight IDE.
- robmccoll 12y ago
  Windows isn't supported, but I'm going to guess that adding Windows support wouldn't be impossible. GTK is definitely cross-platform, I don't think neovim has any changes that would make it any harder to build for Windows than vim, and you can get POSIX calls through cygwin or MinGW. Might actually make a good project for anyone wanting to get into rust on Windows.
  - Spiritus 12y ago
    Last time I checked, Neovim doesn't build on Windows[1] [1] https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/810 https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/810
- exDM69 12y ago
  > There are developers on WIndodws machines, and because they like it! Looks like there's no obstacles in getting this to run on Windows, GTK and all the other components behind this should run just fine on Windows. It just takes some effort from a Windows dev to set up builds and port whatever minor incompatibilities there are. The problem with Windows is that non-Windows devs don't find supporting that platform pleasant (to put it mildly) and in my experience, there's a very limited number of Windows devs who actually contribute back to open source projects (this may be a cultural thing coming from a proprietary OS). Additionally, supporting Windows is a bit painful because there isn't as much free tooling available, e.g. doing automated Windows testing in travis-ci is not an option AFAIK.
fit2rule 12y ago
Tried to build it, seems the build is broken: error: could not find native static library `nvim`, perhaps an -L flag is missing? .. guess I'll have a go at fixing this.
- gw 12y ago
  I think this means you don't have a dependency that Neovim needed to build. Make sure you ran the apt-get commands in the README.
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    I did indeed follow the README to a tee .. and on OSX .. so I'm still at a loss as to what may be wrong.
    - gw 12y ago
      The specific build errors won't show because Cargo hides the output. Try cloning https://github.com/oakes/neovim https://github.com/oakes/neovim and running `make libnvim` inside it. The errors you get should make it more clear what dependency is missing.
      - fit2rule 12y ago
        Thanks for the tip .. looks like I've got something not quite right with my busted install, posting the details here in case any other HN users run up against it: Scanning dependencies of target stable-busted-deps [ 93%] Generating usr/lib/luarocks/rocks/stable-busted-deps PANIC: unprotected error in call to Lua API (.../rust/neovim/.deps/usr/share/lua/5.1/luarocks/fs/lua.lua:3 68: cannot open /Users/fit2rule/.cache/luarocks/https___rocks.moonscript.org/manifest-5.1: No such file or directory) make[3]: *** [usr/lib/luarocks/rocks/stable-busted-deps] Error .. seems like a conflict resulting from having lua5.2 installed alongside lua5.1 .. if I figure it out, I'll update. Update: for reasons I don't understand, the manifest-5.1 file is .zip'ed up .. so: $ cd /Users/fit2rule/.cache/luarocks/https___rocks.moonscript.org/ $ unzip manifest-5.1.zip .. fixed the issue, and now libnvim can be built properly. Seems like there are issues with having lua5.2 and lua5.1 side by side as maintained by homebrew on OSX .. so if others run into this issue, there's the facts. Update2: SolidOak still refuses to build, this time getting further but still reporting build failure: Compiling glib-sys v0.1.0 (https://github.com/oakes/rgtk#01b611cf) Build failed, waiting for other jobs to finish... EDIT: Never mind, I neglected to set PKG_CONFIG_PATH again in a new shell session, as per the README .. I'm now running SolidOak just fine and proceeding to use it to learn me some rust ... So .. leaving all the above for historical purposes ..
pnathan 12y ago
This is really cool! I'll have to check it out later today. Although, ahem, I expect that I'll just integrate Racer into emacs. :-)

99 points by neverminder 12y ago

616c 12y ago

I know people complain about the negativity on HN, so this is a minor nitpick. I have been an on-and-off Linux and UNIX user for a while, but ... > It's just a standalone executable that will run anywhere without being installed. See the Releases page for pre-built Linux x64 binaries (you need Rust and GTK+ 3.10 or above installed). Is this not contradictory? Granted, statically linking GTK, 2 or 3, must be ridiculous, but would this still be considered a standalone binary? Granted, I think this might be a variant of libc needs to link to and I am just confused, but I am curious what more knowledgeable people think. Anyway, I am not dismissing this project though. It sounds very cool. I might give it a shot. FYI to everyone, racer is also a core component of making Rust hacking on Emacs wonderful, from what I hear. I have yet to be Rustacean. https://github.com/phildawes/racer#emacs-integration https://github.com/phildawes/racer#emacs-integration

jscheel 12y ago
Well, that, and anywhere realistically means anywhere except the most widely-used operating system in the world. Of course, the dev has absolutely no responsibility to provide that, I just thought it was funny.
- kenbellows 12y ago
  I think he meant anywhere within a filesystem, not anywhere in the world or on any OS
- ben0x539 12y ago
  Why would you want to run an IDE on Android? Most of those don't even come with real keyboards!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
kenbellows 12y ago
I read "standalone executable that will run anywhere without being installed" to mean that it's a single executable file that you can move around, it doesn't drop a mess of `.so`s or config files all over your system, and it doesn't need to be in any particular directory to work properly, but NOT that it has no dependencies. As you alluded to, it's nearly impossible to package any non-trivial program (especially anything with a GUI) into a single executable with every dependency statically linked; it would be enormous and unwieldy. So defining "standalone" in terms of the number of new files entering your system (only one) is, IMHO, the more useful definition.
- gw 12y ago
  Yeah that's a good way of putting it (I'm the developer). I intend to bundle the GTK libraries in the Mac version when I'm ready to start pre-building it.
  - 616c 12y ago
    I just want to say I am way below your skill level, and I mean no disrepect. I see a lot of standalone (especially playing with Haskell binaries, like pandoc). To use one such example, even Pandoc and company are not even self-contained. The problem is I am not sure where other people in Linux communities draw the line. It is not a really serious thing. Still I applaud you and other Rustaceans. It is nice to see fully formed GUI apps in Rust, because it makes it look to outsiders that news of stabilizing releases means people are really investing building useful tools.

ivoras 12y ago

The one thing which nags me about Rust is the amount of what seem like weird syntax choices, deliberately different from most popular programming languages. See e.g. line 14 in https://github.com/oakes/SolidOak/blob/master/src/ffi.rs https://github.com/oakes/SolidOak/blob/master/src/ffi.rs : let mut fds : [c_int; 2] = [0; 2]; Why not declare the array type as c_int[2]? And why use semicolons instead of commas? There are enough such "wtf?" moments that it causes pause and a sense of weirdness while reading Rust code, if the reader is familiar with other C-like languages (which is not to say that Rust itself is C-like).

vertex-four 12y ago
> Why not declare the array type as c_int[2]? Because a design decision was made that the type should look like the instantiation of that type. Same with structs and enums. > And why use semicolons instead of commas? Because this is "two elements both containing 0", not the array [0, 2]. Semicolons are used for that.
killercup 12y ago
> if the reader is familiar with other C-like languages I like to think that Rust wants you to be familiar with C and ML syntax and philosophies before getting comfortable :) The array type syntax you quoted is a bit like Haskell's `[Char]` syntax with a fixed-length property bolted on. You are right, though, that semicolon looks a bit weird. I guess using commas was not an option because the same syntax on the right hand side of the `=` means `[0, 0]`, i.e. two elements which are 0.
frewsxcv 12y ago
[0; 2] and [0, 2] are both valid in Rust, but mean different things. http://doc.rust-lang.org/reference.html#array-expressions http://doc.rust-lang.org/reference.html#array-expressions I suggest learning the language before making an attempt to criticize it.
- ivoras 12y ago
  > I suggest learning the language before making an attempt to criticize it. I will learn it. I like the semantics of Rust, it's a thing which needed to be attempted. What I am suggesting is, that for a language to be popular and accepted in already existing communities, it should have as little syntactic differences from the standards already present in those communities (or more elaborate: that things with similar semantics should have similar syntax). This does not preclude adding both new semantics and new syntax to the language. In this case, I think the "target audience" for Rust is the crowd already familiar with C and C++, and languages (which are in many cases superior to C and C++) with significant differences such as LISP, Haskell, Erlang are vastly less popular compared to C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript. As a counter-example to my claim I recognize Python, which succeeded even if it was radically different and even today has some serious issues (for me, it is its performance and the GIL in CPython). IMO, it succeeded precisely because it was radically different than mainstream languages before it, so it didn't cause "mind crosstalk" issues you get when you encounter something which seems familiar but actually isn't. Of course, this is inconsequential, it really boils down to arguing about personal taste and preferences. And even if I am right, if the semantics of Rust become popular, I'm sure that a more C-like language will evolve from it (maybe called Crust? :D ). If I am wrong, Rust will live long and prosper as it is.

killercup 12y ago

This looks pretty cool. It's nice to see there are working GTK3 bindings for Rust. It'll be interesting to see how many IDE features will be implemented. Currently it seems like a distribution of NeoVim + directory tree + Racer (Rust Autocompletion).

swah 12y ago

Windows is not supported.... Sublime being on all platforms is what made it so huge. There are developers on WIndodws machines, and because they like it!

mattdeboard 12y ago
SublimeText isn't an IDE
- bjohnso5 12y ago
  I think that's debatable... with the currently humongous list of available plugins and it's project-focused interface, I don't think it's much of a stretch at this point to identify it as a lightweight IDE.
robmccoll 12y ago
Windows isn't supported, but I'm going to guess that adding Windows support wouldn't be impossible. GTK is definitely cross-platform, I don't think neovim has any changes that would make it any harder to build for Windows than vim, and you can get POSIX calls through cygwin or MinGW. Might actually make a good project for anyone wanting to get into rust on Windows.
- Spiritus 12y ago
  Last time I checked, Neovim doesn't build on Windows[1] [1] https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/810 https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/810
exDM69 12y ago
> There are developers on WIndodws machines, and because they like it! Looks like there's no obstacles in getting this to run on Windows, GTK and all the other components behind this should run just fine on Windows. It just takes some effort from a Windows dev to set up builds and port whatever minor incompatibilities there are. The problem with Windows is that non-Windows devs don't find supporting that platform pleasant (to put it mildly) and in my experience, there's a very limited number of Windows devs who actually contribute back to open source projects (this may be a cultural thing coming from a proprietary OS). Additionally, supporting Windows is a bit painful because there isn't as much free tooling available, e.g. doing automated Windows testing in travis-ci is not an option AFAIK.

fit2rule 12y ago

Tried to build it, seems the build is broken: error: could not find native static library `nvim`, perhaps an -L flag is missing? .. guess I'll have a go at fixing this.

gw 12y ago
I think this means you don't have a dependency that Neovim needed to build. Make sure you ran the apt-get commands in the README.
- fit2rule 12y ago
  I did indeed follow the README to a tee .. and on OSX .. so I'm still at a loss as to what may be wrong.
  - gw 12y ago
    The specific build errors won't show because Cargo hides the output. Try cloning https://github.com/oakes/neovim https://github.com/oakes/neovim and running `make libnvim` inside it. The errors you get should make it more clear what dependency is missing.
    - fit2rule 12y ago
      Thanks for the tip .. looks like I've got something not quite right with my busted install, posting the details here in case any other HN users run up against it: Scanning dependencies of target stable-busted-deps [ 93%] Generating usr/lib/luarocks/rocks/stable-busted-deps PANIC: unprotected error in call to Lua API (.../rust/neovim/.deps/usr/share/lua/5.1/luarocks/fs/lua.lua:3 68: cannot open /Users/fit2rule/.cache/luarocks/https___rocks.moonscript.org/manifest-5.1: No such file or directory) make[3]: *** [usr/lib/luarocks/rocks/stable-busted-deps] Error .. seems like a conflict resulting from having lua5.2 installed alongside lua5.1 .. if I figure it out, I'll update. Update: for reasons I don't understand, the manifest-5.1 file is .zip'ed up .. so: $ cd /Users/fit2rule/.cache/luarocks/https___rocks.moonscript.org/ $ unzip manifest-5.1.zip .. fixed the issue, and now libnvim can be built properly. Seems like there are issues with having lua5.2 and lua5.1 side by side as maintained by homebrew on OSX .. so if others run into this issue, there's the facts. Update2: SolidOak still refuses to build, this time getting further but still reporting build failure: Compiling glib-sys v0.1.0 (https://github.com/oakes/rgtk#01b611cf) Build failed, waiting for other jobs to finish... EDIT: Never mind, I neglected to set PKG_CONFIG_PATH again in a new shell session, as per the README .. I'm now running SolidOak just fine and proceeding to use it to learn me some rust ... So .. leaving all the above for historical purposes ..

pnathan 12y ago

This is really cool! I'll have to check it out later today. Although, ahem, I expect that I'll just integrate Racer into emacs. :-)