www.digitalmars.com         C & C++   DMDScript  

digitalmars.D - D in Ubuntu apps ecosystem

reply karabuta <karabutaworld gmail.com> writes:
Maybe you might only be thinking about Android or iOS, but Ubuntu 
Touch (a single Ubuntu OS meant to run across multiple devices 
from PC to Phones) is really gaining traction. The good news is 
that QML is officially the way to build apps and D already has 
dqml(https://github.com/filcuc/dqml). Back-end(optional) is also 
C++ with API bindings in Go and JavaScript. D currently has good 
support for C++.

SIDE NOTE: Ubuntu just lunched a phone with 4GB ram running on a 
x64 Octacore Arm processors in addition to a table with similar 
high spec, which can all pretty much handle D(even with GC) IMO. 
All subsequent devices will be high spec since the OS will run 
desktop apps on phone and even IoT.

So, do you not think Ubuntu ecosystem makes a good and easy to 
enter market? Unfortunately, I don't have the fuel and engine 
power to make API bindings, so anyone willing to help here?

http://www.ubuntu.com/phone
http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/features
http://www.ubuntu.com/tablet
https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/apps/qml/
Feb 25 2016
next sibling parent reply Adam D. Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 25 February 2016 at 17:27:45 UTC, karabuta wrote:
 SIDE NOTE: Ubuntu just lunched a phone with 4GB ram running on 
 a x64 Octacore Arm processors in addition to a table with 
 similar high spec, which can all pretty much handle D(even with 
 GC) IMO.
You can run D with GC with 16 MB - yes, megabytes - of RAM. It'd be more comfortable with 32, sure, but the garbage collector isn't *that* much of a memory hog.
Feb 25 2016
parent Zardoz <luis.panadero gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 25 February 2016 at 18:05:40 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe 
wrote:
 On Thursday, 25 February 2016 at 17:27:45 UTC, karabuta wrote:
 SIDE NOTE: Ubuntu just lunched a phone with 4GB ram running on 
 a x64 Octacore Arm processors in addition to a table with 
 similar high spec, which can all pretty much handle D(even 
 with GC) IMO.
You can run D with GC with 16 MB - yes, megabytes - of RAM. It'd be more comfortable with 32, sure, but the garbage collector isn't *that* much of a memory hog.
D gc not would be the most faster on the wild, but isn't like Java wasting RAM.
Feb 25 2016
prev sibling parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Thursday, 25 February 2016 at 17:27:45 UTC, karabuta wrote:
 Maybe you might only be thinking about Android or iOS, but 
 Ubuntu Touch (a single Ubuntu OS meant to run across multiple 
 devices from PC to Phones) is really gaining traction. The good 
 news is that QML is officially the way to build apps and D 
 already has dqml(https://github.com/filcuc/dqml). 
 Back-end(optional) is also C++ with API bindings in Go and 
 JavaScript. D currently has good support for C++.

 SIDE NOTE: Ubuntu just lunched a phone with 4GB ram running on 
 a x64 Octacore Arm processors in addition to a table with 
 similar high spec, which can all pretty much handle D(even with 
 GC) IMO. All subsequent devices will be high spec since the OS 
 will run desktop apps on phone and even IoT.
But can such a powerful phone handle Ubuntu Touch? ;) The preliminary reviews for the Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition, which you're presumably referencing, are not good, even though the hardware is spec-ed out, because the Ubuntu software is supposedly slow and laggy. I was hopeful for the previous Ubuntu on Android effort years ago, but it never went anywhere. I bet this one won't either.
 So, do you not think Ubuntu ecosystem makes a good and easy to 
 enter market? Unfortunately, I don't have the fuel and engine 
 power to make API bindings, so anyone willing to help here?

 http://www.ubuntu.com/phone
 http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/features
 http://www.ubuntu.com/tablet
 https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/apps/qml/
Well, it took us a long time to get on the currently most popular OS platforms, iOS and Android, and we still have no apps on there, so I don't think this tiny Ubuntu niche will get much dev effort. But if you or someone else believes in and wants to develop for it, more power to you.
Feb 25 2016
next sibling parent Stefan Hertenberger <SHertenberger Web.de> writes:
On Thursday, 25 February 2016 at 19:21:48 UTC, Joakim wrote:
 Well, it took us a long time to get on the currently most 
 popular OS platforms, iOS and Android, and we still have no 
 apps on there, so I don't think this tiny Ubuntu niche will get 
 much dev effort.  But if you or someone else believes in and 
 wants to develop for it, more power to you.
There is SailfishOS, which uses QML too. http://jolla.com/ https://sailfishos.org/
Feb 25 2016
prev sibling parent reply Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling webdrake.net> writes:
On Thursday, 25 February 2016 at 19:21:48 UTC, Joakim wrote:
 But can such a powerful phone handle Ubuntu Touch? ;) The 
 preliminary reviews for the Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition, which 
 you're presumably referencing, are not good, even though the 
 hardware is spec-ed out, because the Ubuntu software is 
 supposedly slow and laggy.  I was hopeful for the previous 
 Ubuntu on Android effort years ago, but it never went anywhere.
  I bet this one won't either.
Based on my own experience with an Ubuntu phone (it's my daily driver, and I have the least-powerful hardware of the existing commercially released phones), I think that the reviews are just possibly not coming from an unbiased position. ;-)
 Well, it took us a long time to get on the currently most 
 popular OS platforms, iOS and Android, and we still have no 
 apps on there, so I don't think this tiny Ubuntu niche will get 
 much dev effort.  But if you or someone else believes in and 
 wants to develop for it, more power to you.
Well, if I understand right, the hardest part of the work (making sure things run OK on ARM) has substantially been done by you and others. Assuming that works, I would anticipate that the major part of the requirements would be the bindings to the Ubuntu SDK. I do think the Ubuntu offerings are compelling in terms of how they restructure the phone/tablet experience, particularly in terms of how they structure things like the security and permissions models, and the separation between hardware-interaction-layer vs. core OS vs. application space and the prospects there for consistent software deployment (and updates) across many different devices.
Feb 26 2016
next sibling parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Friday, 26 February 2016 at 09:25:19 UTC, Joseph Rushton 
Wakeling wrote:
 On Thursday, 25 February 2016 at 19:21:48 UTC, Joakim wrote:
 But can such a powerful phone handle Ubuntu Touch? ;) The 
 preliminary reviews for the Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition, which 
 you're presumably referencing, are not good, even though the 
 hardware is spec-ed out, because the Ubuntu software is 
 supposedly slow and laggy.  I was hopeful for the previous 
 Ubuntu on Android effort years ago, but it never went anywhere.
  I bet this one won't either.
Based on my own experience with an Ubuntu phone (it's my daily driver, and I have the least-powerful hardware of the existing commercially released phones), I think that the reviews are just possibly not coming from an unbiased position. ;-)
I don't know that anybody cares about Ubuntu enough to be biased against it. Vlad Savov said he wanted to like it, but couldn't: http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/23/11097126/meizu-pro-5-ubuntu-edition-specs-price-release-date-mwc-2016 Of course, this is pre-release software and likely a newer version of Ubuntu than what you're running, so maybe they'll get it all to work well soon, if it did in the past on your phone.
 Well, it took us a long time to get on the currently most 
 popular OS platforms, iOS and Android, and we still have no 
 apps on there, so I don't think this tiny Ubuntu niche will 
 get much dev effort.  But if you or someone else believes in 
 and wants to develop for it, more power to you.
Well, if I understand right, the hardest part of the work (making sure things run OK on ARM) has substantially been done by you and others. Assuming that works, I would anticipate that the major part of the requirements would be the bindings to the Ubuntu SDK.
Mostly others, I just fixed a few ARM bugs here and there: most of the code needed for ARM was written by David, Dan, Johannes, and others. Yeah, now that ldc has good codegen for ARM, including the Raspberry Pi (https://github.com/ldc-developers/ldc/issues/1283), all Ubuntu should require is OS bindings.
 I do think the Ubuntu offerings are compelling in terms of how 
 they restructure the phone/tablet experience, particularly in 
 terms of how they structure things like the security and 
 permissions models, and the separation between 
 hardware-interaction-layer vs. core OS vs. application space 
 and the prospects there for consistent software deployment (and 
 updates) across many different devices.
Sounds interesting, the Scopes UI seems cool too. I was mostly talking about the small userbase and how it'd be tough to justify investing much time into it. But if someone really wants D on there, that'd be great. :)
Feb 26 2016
prev sibling parent karabuta <karabutaworld gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 26 February 2016 at 09:25:19 UTC, Joseph Rushton 
Wakeling wrote:
 On Thursday, 25 February 2016 at 19:21:48 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 Well, if I understand right, the hardest part of the work 
 (making sure things run OK on ARM) has substantially been done 
 by you and others.  Assuming that works, I would anticipate 
 that the major part of the requirements would be the bindings 
 to the Ubuntu SDK.
Yes the SDK. That is the part that remains, asides bindings to the APIs. Much work has gone into iOS and Android but still more remains to actually use it for everyday apps. Ubuntu on the other hand is just straight forward. As I mentioned earlier, QML binding is done (dqml), remaining API bindings and integration into the SDK. https://developer.ubuntu.com/api/ https://developer.ubuntu.com/api/apps/qml/sdk-15.04.1/ https://developer.ubuntu.com/api/scopes/cpp/sdk-15.04.1/
 I do think the Ubuntu offerings are compelling in terms of how 
 they restructure the phone/tablet experience, particularly in 
 terms of how they structure things like the security and 
 permissions models, and the separation between 
 hardware-interaction-layer vs. core OS vs. application space 
 and the prospects there for consistent software deployment (and 
 updates) across many different devices.
That's my point, write one app and sell it to users of phones, phables, tablet, PC, IoT, etc. No change of code. Everything is handled by the Adaptive Layout.
Feb 26 2016