What's the rationale for using Rust to write a UI? Using a scripting language (or at least a garbage-collected language) is much less restrictive, and it's not like the "what goes where" UI code is especially performance-sensitive.

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raphlinus 18 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

This is a perfectly reasonable question, and I think there are two aspects to it.

First, one of the research questions tested by Xilem is whether it is practical to write UI in Rust. It's plausible that scripting languages do end up being better, but we don't really know that until we've explored the question more deeply. And there are other very interesting explorations of this question, including Dioxus and Leptos.

Second, even if scripting languages do turn out to be better at expressing UI design and interaction (something I find plausible, though not yet settled), it's very compelling to have a high performance UI engine under a scriptable layer. I've done some experiments with Python bindings, and I think in an alternate universe you'd have apps like ComfyUI as high performance desktop app rather than a web page. Also, the layering of Xilem as the reactive layer, backed by Masonry as the widgets, is explicitly designed to be amenable to scripting, though to my knowledge there hasn't been a lot of actual work on this.

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t_mahmood 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Good thing about iced is, you get a compact executable, runs on any OS, looks exactly the same everywhere, perform much better than web based UI, no need to manage any permission to access local files, and you can customize the look as you need, but comes with tolerable default.

Price to pay is building the UI is bit complex as it doesn't hold your hand, unforgiving, and not native.

I like iced. But tauri is good middle ground

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QuantumNomad_ 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Same reason every other language has UI frameworks. It is more comfortable and nice to write the whole desktop program in the same language.

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jauntywundrkind 3 hours ago | parent [-]

These people are such jackasses. What's the reason to not use assembly? To not frelling suffer in hell. To have a system that works well together, that gives us a stable base, without infinite danger everywhere.

It's so sad having such perpetuate drains asking only negative vortex energy sink ass questions. No attempt to show any real outreach or curiosity or interest, all sucking nihil void of doubt. No demonstrated ability to offer any useful assessment, just pure sucking doubt.

Good faith questions show some concomitant interest or ability to recognize whats at stake. The harmless innocent child offering savage nothing? I tire of that act.

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creata 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I have been watching people write UI frameworks in Rust for over a decade, you meanie.

The results tend to involve more dynamic allocation than you'd see in a garbage-collected language, or tons of reference counting (e.g., in Leptos) that acts as a less efficient GC. I've read many of raphlinus's posts, and while they're always interesting, the total experience in the Xilem examples just seems like much more effort than using FFI (even C FFI) to glue to something more workable.

Your comparison to assembly is very bizarre - languages of the sort I mentioned are usually at least as safe as Rust, and the "scripting language for top-level logic + compiled language for the bits that need to be fast" combination is ancient. In fact, your vague allusions to "a stable base, without infinite danger everywhere" shows much less understanding of what's at stake, in my view.

I'm sorry my question wasn't enlightened enough for you.

And this is a news aggregator. Not the official discussion forums or anything. People can ask small insignificant questions here, or so I thought.

I'm so tired. You write one measly paragraph that could simply be ignored and someone calls you a "perpetuate drain". Even the chatbots have more humanity than you've got.

	▲	jauntywundrkind an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> I'm so tired. You write one measly paragraph that could simply be ignored and someone calls you a "perpetuate drain". Even the chatbots have more humanity than you've got. Don't tire everyone else out by asking open ended draining questions. Show some engagement, before doing what looks like a discarding. You've shown you have some interest or connection to the situation, with your reply. None of that was present before, in your 'just-asking-questions' "measely paragraph". It looked like just another anti-rust anti-systemd anti-pipewire/pulseaudio anti-wayland drain, only sapping energies without showing faintest attempts at engaging. Offer something, try to have some positive sum. We are all so tired. Why be a vacuum, why drain us, like you did? Critical review is fine! But show some engagement, offer something yourself, when doing so.

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Ygg2 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Tech wise? If you have your UI in Rust it's both the safest and most performant language to implement it.

And you don't need to ship the entire web stack just to get GUI.