Yue VS serenity

For a recent project I chose Yue (https://libyue.com/), a cross-platform native widget GUI toolkit with C++, JavaScript/Node.js, and Lua. I've only used the Lua interface and macOS backend, but it has worked quite well, despite the very steep learning curve. This was also my first desktop GUI app, so I had to learn many implicit concepts that weren't obvious from the otherwise extensive documentation.

Yue was also the only option that 1) supported macOS, 2) supported Lua, 3) was sufficiently comprehensive to build a non-toy GUI app, 4) and that I could integrate into my (static) build. I couldn't even get the wxWidgets Lua interfaces to compile, and Qt and Fltk had similar stories, whereas reverse-engineering the baroque Yue build (based on Google's internal build systems) was relatively simple. Yue had some sharp edges, but I was able to work around them whilst patiently waiting for patches and fixes upstream.

Immediate mode interfaces were a non-starter for me. For a non-trivial set of otherwise typical controls and window management you have to implement too much yourself, plus being non-native they not only felt wrong (which admittedly is somewhat subjective; the younger crowd seems to think non-native, immediate mode interfaces look more state-of-the-art), but lacked other interfaces for proper desktop integration, like theme change signaling (i.e. notification that a user switch between light and dark modes in the macOS system settings panel).

All-in-all I would highly recommend Yue.

I settled for Yue: https://github.com/yue/yue It's been around for several years. The deciding factor for me was that is has well maintained Lua bindings as part of the core project alongside JavaScript (Node.js) and C++.

I didn't have much luck with libui (crashes, missing features, etc), and various immediate mode alternatives just require too many dependencies and other work that made integration too painful. Plus, Lua bindings for all these were always stale. In fact, Lua binding quality is pretty poor all around including for GTK, Qt, WxWidgets, and FLTK.

There are many more JavaScript developers than C++ developers.

Personally I like Yue, a cross-platform native toolkit library: https://github.com/yue/yue But much of project was already using Lua, so Node.js and Electron were never viable solutions.

A native GUI library https://github.com/yue/yue.

It was a disaster when I announced it on Hacker News, and I got numerous harassments from strangers.

But anyway 2 years since then and I'm still working on it.

SerenityOS replicates that look and feel. It is also implemented in a dialect of C++ that adheres to some of the good parts of C++98: https://serenityos.org

One example of a useful technique

https://serenityos.org/ apparently only makes source code available. There are no binary images of the OS to install

I think Andreas said this functions like a little test -- if you're not willing to build it from source, then you probably wouldn't be a good contributor anyway.

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Likewise, my shell project provides source tarballs only, right now - https://www.oilshell.org/release/0.21.0/

It is packaged in a number of places, which I appreciate. That means some other people are willing to do some work.

And they provide good feedback.

I would like it to be more widely available, but yeah I definitely see that you need to "gate" peanut gallery feedback a bit, because it takes up a lot of time.

Of course, it's a tricky balance, because you also want feedback from casual users, to make the project better.

Indeed, given the existence of `JS::NonnullGCPtr`, `JS::GcPtr` intentionally corresponds to a nullable pointer, so it seems dangerous to convert one to a reference without a null-check.

That said, a naive code search finds what *may* be more cases of this pattern:

https://github.com/search?q=repo%3ASerenityOS%2Fserenity+%2F...

Eg: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/a68b134e6dea5065... -> https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/a68b134e6dea5065...

In some of those search results, it is fine because there is a preceding null-check, and obviously I know nothing about this code other than this naive search result, but perhaps it would be prudent to vet all of them.

It is a SerenityOS project. You can find the answer to that question in their primary project's FAQ[1].

1. https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Documenta...

https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity

The best way to write proper exception free C++ is not to use the C++ Standard Library.

I initially confused it with Serenity OS prior to watching the video: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity

My contributions to SerenityOS[0] helped me get my current job. My team lead (who was also my interviewer) was interested in what I did since I listed some of it in my CV, and I showed him some PRs I made and explained what went into each of them. It was really exciting because I didn't have professional experience with low-level development, and basically got the job due to hobby programming.

[0]: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pulls?q=is%3Apr+autho...

Definitely not "literally impossible", just a great deal of work. https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Ladybird