[dart-misc] Electron(Atom-shell) for Dart

[Suguru Inatomi]

Electron(old name "Atom-shell") is an awesome approach to package an web
application with the browser to make native desktop apps.
By the way, Dart has Dartium. Something like Electron for Dart have been
planned in the team?

[Lex Berezhny]

There is Sky but for now that's mostly intended for mobile devices.

https://github.com/domokit/sky_sdk

Sky is an experimental, high-performance UI framework for mobile apps. Sky
helps you create apps with beautiful user interfaces and high-quality
interactive design that run smoothly at 120 Hz.

Sky consists of two components:

1.

*The Sky engine.* The engine is the core of the system. Written in C++,
the engine provides the muscle of the Sky system. The engine provides
several primitives, including a soft real-time scheduler and a hierarchial,
retained-mode graphics system, that let you build high-quality apps.
2.

*The Sky framework.* The framework
<https://github.com/domokit/sky_sdk/blob/master/packages/sky/lib/framework>
makes
it easy to build apps using Sky by providing familiar user interface
widgets, such as buttons, infinite lists, and animations, on top of the
engine using Dart. These extensible components follow a functional
programming style inspired by React <http://facebook.github.io/react/>.

We're still iterating on Sky heavily, which means the framework and
underlying engine are both likely to change in incompatible ways several
times, but if you're interested in trying out the system, this document can
help you get started.

[Suguru Inatomi]

Wow, it means Sky will target mobiles and desktop both?

[ravi teja]

It would be great to have it on desktop, on all platforms. But currently
they seem to focus only on Android.

Post by Suguru Inatomi
Wow, it means Sky will target mobiles and desktop both?
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[Günter Zöchbauer]

Where did you read "desktop"?

Post by Suguru Inatomi
Wow, it means Sky will target mobiles and desktop both?

[Suguru Inatomi]

Post by Lex Berezhny
There is Sky but for now that's mostly intended for mobile devices.

I thought this means it may support desktop platforms in the future.

Post by Lex Berezhny
Where did you read "desktop"?

Post by Suguru Inatomi
Wow, it means Sky will target mobiles and desktop both?

[Lex Berezhny]

Post by Lex Berezhny
There is Sky but for now that's mostly intended for mobile devices.
I thought this means it may support desktop platforms in the future.

Ironically, the story is actually kind of backwards: Sky is built on-top of
mojo which is made from Chromium parts which as we know runs on "desktop".

I think that by virtue of Sky having chromium roots and the eventual goal
of having it run on iOS will require enough platform abstraction that it
shouldn't be a stretch to say that it is guaranteed to also run on
"desktop".

Also, when we say "desktop" what do we mean? Windows, Mac and Linux aren't
exactly "the same desktop platform". Besides, we're getting closer and
closer to full convergence: Ubuntu now runs mobile, Windows 10 runs mobile,
Chrome OS lets you run Android apps, etc.

The more interesting thing for me actually is when will Sky apps run in
plain old browsers? I asked something along these lines on #mojo IRC a
while ago and the response I got was that it 1) should be possible and 2)
they hope the community will do it. And if you look in the depths of Sky
source you'll see that for the most part it's the familiar querySelector,
element creation and shadow dom APIs from HTML5. These APIs will probably
continue to change but the fact that Sky is based on Chrome suggests that
porting Sky apps to plain Chrome probably shouldn't be that difficult.

Furthermore, my impression is that Sky is basically a modern web browser -
if Google were to invent a web browser today without worrying about
backwards compatibility this is what it would look like. Of course if
Google describes the project this way you can imagine the uproar, so
instead Sky is just a mobile UI platform for Dart (more benign this way)
:-) Saving the internet from terabytes upon terabytes of "Sky will never be
the next browser"... kind of like when Google announced Dart as the next
JavaScript and all the haters came out of the wood work.

Everyone made a big deal about Dart VM not being put into Chrome but the
reality is that Google appears to have changed course onto even bigger
plans. If you can't convince Firefox/Safari/IE to add Dart then just start
an entirely new platform - makes sense to me.

Of course keep in mind that all of these projects are experimental and
speculative. The only stuff that's certain is Dart as a language
(regardless of VM/implementation) and dart2js (because Google Ads depends
on it)...

At least that's what I think :-)

- lex

[Günter Zöchbauer]

Sounds interesting.

Post by Lex Berezhny

Post by Lex Berezhny
There is Sky but for now that's mostly intended for mobile devices.
I thought this means it may support desktop platforms in the future.

Ironically, the story is actually kind of backwards: Sky is built on-top
of mojo which is made from Chromium parts which as we know runs on
"desktop".
I think that by virtue of Sky having chromium roots and the eventual goal
of having it run on iOS will require enough platform abstraction that it
shouldn't be a stretch to say that it is guaranteed to also run on
"desktop".
Also, when we say "desktop" what do we mean? Windows, Mac and Linux aren't
exactly "the same desktop platform". Besides, we're getting closer and
closer to full convergence: Ubuntu now runs mobile, Windows 10 runs mobile,
Chrome OS lets you run Android apps, etc.
The more interesting thing for me actually is when will Sky apps run in
plain old browsers? I asked something along these lines on #mojo IRC a
while ago and the response I got was that it 1) should be possible and 2)
they hope the community will do it. And if you look in the depths of Sky
source you'll see that for the most part it's the familiar querySelector,
element creation and shadow dom APIs from HTML5. These APIs will probably
continue to change but the fact that Sky is based on Chrome suggests that
porting Sky apps to plain Chrome probably shouldn't be that difficult.
Furthermore, my impression is that Sky is basically a modern web browser -
if Google were to invent a web browser today without worrying about
backwards compatibility this is what it would look like. Of course if
Google describes the project this way you can imagine the uproar, so
instead Sky is just a mobile UI platform for Dart (more benign this way)
:-) Saving the internet from terabytes upon terabytes of "Sky will never be
the next browser"... kind of like when Google announced Dart as the next
JavaScript and all the haters came out of the wood work.
Everyone made a big deal about Dart VM not being put into Chrome but the
reality is that Google appears to have changed course onto even bigger
plans. If you can't convince Firefox/Safari/IE to add Dart then just start
an entirely new platform - makes sense to me.
Of course keep in mind that all of these projects are experimental and
speculative. The only stuff that's certain is Dart as a language
(regardless of VM/implementation) and dart2js (because Google Ads depends
on it)...
At least that's what I think :-)
- lex

[Grant Jason]

Thanks for your views and context Lex.

Post by Lex Berezhny
Ironically, the story is actually kind of backwards: Sky is built on-top
of mojo which is made from Chromium parts which as we know runs on
"desktop".
I think that by virtue of Sky having chromium roots and the eventual goal
of having it run on iOS will require enough platform abstraction that it
shouldn't be a stretch to say that it is guaranteed to also run on
"desktop".
Also, when we say "desktop" what do we mean? Windows, Mac and Linux aren't
exactly "the same desktop platform". Besides, we're getting closer and
closer to full convergence: Ubuntu now runs mobile, Windows 10 runs mobile,
Chrome OS lets you run Android apps, etc.
The more interesting thing for me actually is when will Sky apps run in
plain old browsers? I asked something along these lines on #mojo IRC a
while ago and the response I got was that it 1) should be possible and 2)
they hope the community will do it. And if you look in the depths of Sky
source you'll see that for the most part it's the familiar querySelector,
element creation and shadow dom APIs from HTML5. These APIs will probably
continue to change but the fact that Sky is based on Chrome suggests that
porting Sky apps to plain Chrome probably shouldn't be that difficult.
Furthermore, my impression is that Sky is basically a modern web browser -
if Google were to invent a web browser today without worrying about
backwards compatibility this is what it would look like. Of course if
Google describes the project this way you can imagine the uproar, so
instead Sky is just a mobile UI platform for Dart (more benign this way)
:-) Saving the internet from terabytes upon terabytes of "Sky will never be
the next browser"... kind of like when Google announced Dart as the next
JavaScript and all the haters came out of the wood work.
Everyone made a big deal about Dart VM not being put into Chrome but the
reality is that Google appears to have changed course onto even bigger
plans. If you can't convince Firefox/Safari/IE to add Dart then just start
an entirely new platform - makes sense to me.
Of course keep in mind that all of these projects are experimental and
speculative. The only stuff that's certain is Dart as a language
(regardless of VM/implementation) and dart2js (because Google Ads depends
on it)...
At least that's what I think :-)
- lex

[Alex Tatumizer]

Sky helps you create apps with *beautiful* user interfaces and

high-quality interactive design that run smoothly at 120 Hz.

Sky is built on-top of mojo which is made from Chromium parts which as we

know runs on "desktop"

I think these 2 statements slightly contradict each other. From chromium
parts? Which parts? By any chance, isn't it DOM, CSS, HTML etc? So in the
end, it will look exactly as it does in the browser, but will *work*
faster. That's fine, but "beautiful" is not the first word that comes to
mind when WRT aesthetic value of the result. My bet is: after spending
extraordinary effort to design and implement this new arrangement of old
parts, the things on the screen will look as underwhelming as they are now.
☂

['Bob Nystrom' via Dart Misc]

Post by Alex Tatumizer
By any chance, isn't it DOM, CSS, HTML etc?

Nope!

You can look at Dart as a clean-slate design that tries to be familiar to
users coming from JS. Sky does the same thing for the DOM, CSS, and HTML.
They're trying to keep what's good about those languages, but not what's
bad.

Cheers!

- bob

['Justin Fagnani' via Dart Misc]

On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 9:27 AM, 'Bob Nystrom' via Dart Misc <

Post by 'Bob Nystrom' via Dart Misc

Post by Alex Tatumizer
By any chance, isn't it DOM, CSS, HTML etc?

Nope!
You can look at Dart as a clean-slate design that tries to be familiar to
users coming from JS. Sky does the same thing for the DOM, CSS, and HTML.
They're trying to keep what's good about those languages, but not what's
bad.

Sky goes further: it's exposing what underlies those languages, such as
paint, text layout, networking, and then gets rid of the languages
entirely. AFAIK, DOM, CSS and HTML are all gone. There's a render tree,
line layout, per-node styling without selecting or cascading, and i/o. If
you want CSS and HTML like things, you have to build them yourself, in Dart.

Post by 'Bob Nystrom' via Dart Misc
Cheers!
- bob
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[Alex Tatumizer]

Post by 'Justin Fagnani' via Dart Misc
Sky goes further: it's exposing what underlies those languages, such as

paint, text layout, networking,
Very intriguing! Is there any human readable documentation available? API
samples? Discussion of concepts, etc?

[Filipe Morgado]

Post by Alex Tatumizer
Very intriguing! Is there any human readable documentation available? API
samples? Discussion of concepts, etc?

I'd like to know as well :)
Although this repo <https://github.com/domokit/sky_sdk> seems to answer a
few questions, regarding API and samples.

I understood that Mojo is an optimized native UI (stripped-down DOM
elements, as Justin hinted) in its own thread (view) which will send/get
events/updates to/from the "model/controller services" in other threads,
written in other languages, through a common message-passing interface.

Mojo-sdk are the bindings (or interface API/implementation) for a lot of
languages, C, C++, Java, Python, Go, Dart, etc.

Sky is Mojo with an embed Dart VM for the service threads, and Sky-sdk is
the API to use from Dart.

Is it something along those lines?

Is Sky meant to be Dart-only or can we expect other languages, such as Java
for a smoother Android integration?

['Justin Fagnani' via Dart Misc]

Post by Filipe Morgado

Post by Alex Tatumizer
Very intriguing! Is there any human readable documentation available? API
samples? Discussion of concepts, etc?

I'd like to know as well :)
Although this repo <https://github.com/domokit/sky_sdk> seems to answer a
few questions, regarding API and samples.
I understood that Mojo is an optimized native UI

Mojo is mostly an IPC system between services, as I understand it.

Post by Filipe Morgado
(stripped-down DOM elements, as Justin hinted)

Mojo has no DOM, never did that I know of. Sky is removing or has removed
its DOM.

Post by Filipe Morgado
in its own thread (view) which will send/get events/updates to/from the
"model/controller services" in other threads, written in other languages,
through a common message-passing interface.
Mojo-sdk are the bindings (or interface API/implementation) for a lot of
languages, C, C++, Java, Python, Go, Dart, etc.
Sky is Mojo with an embed Dart VM for the service threads, and Sky-sdk is
the API to use from Dart.
Is it something along those lines?
Is Sky meant to be Dart-only or can we expect other languages, such as
Java for a smoother Android integration?
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[Alex Tatumizer]

The discussion so far reminds this old parable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

[Filipe Morgado]

Post by Alex Tatumizer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

+1 :D

[Don Olmstead]

They're removing it? That sucks. Think it would be great to have something
where you can target web or mobile native easily. Sky seemed like it was
going to support web components.

Post by Suguru Inatomi

Post by Alex Tatumizer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

+1 :D
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[Mark H]

Yes, that's what I was hoping for - web and mobile/desktop all using the
same web components based UI and Dart code.

Post by Don Olmstead
They're removing it? That sucks. Think it would be great to have something
where you can target web or mobile native easily. Sky seemed like it was
going to support web components.

Post by Suguru Inatomi

Post by Alex Tatumizer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

+1 :D
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[Alex Tatumizer]

The most impressive part of sky framework so far is the list of authors
https://github.com/domokit/sky_sdk/blob/master/packages/sky/AUTHORS
Something epic is afoot here.

[Lex Berezhny]

Post by Alex Tatumizer

Sky helps you create apps with *beautiful* user interfaces and

high-quality interactive design that run smoothly at 120 Hz.

Sky is built on-top of mojo which is made from Chromium parts which as

we know runs on "desktop"
I think these 2 statements slightly contradict each other. From chromium
parts? Which parts? By any chance, isn't it DOM, CSS, HTML etc? So in the
end, it will look exactly as it does in the browser, but will *work*
faster. That's fine, but "beautiful" is not the first word that comes to
mind when WRT aesthetic value of the result. My bet is: after spending
extraordinary effort to design and implement this new arrangement of old
parts, the things on the screen will look as underwhelming as they are now.
☂

Just as V8 made it possible to build browser based applications that people
didn't think where possible before, I think Sky is aiming for the same sort
of major shift in UI development. This argument is supported by the
emphasis in the Dart Summit Sky presentation on how fast Sky can go through
the render loop and how much room you have to do stuff in each frame.

I think Sky will bring a new level of interaction and animation to UIs that
wasn't practical before on commodity hardware.

[kc]

Post by Lex Berezhny
Everyone made a big deal about Dart VM not being put into Chrome but the
reality is that Google appears to have changed course onto even bigger
plans. If you can't convince Firefox/Safari/IE to add Dart then just start
an entirely new platform - makes sense to me.
Of course keep in mind that all of these projects are experimental and
speculative. The only stuff that's certain is Dart as a language
(regardless of VM/implementation) and dart2js (because Google Ads depends
on it)...
At least that's what I think :-)
- lex

This is my take as well.

Dart is a basically a high performance structured scripting language. If
Mojo/Sky goes from experiment to product developers will give Dart a second
chance. And the more DSL-ish/declarative the language is - thus allowing
the avoidance of HTML/CSS etc - the more likely dev's (like Alex) will
bite. So for v2.0 I think Dart should risk some backward incompatibility
because there's a bigger prize. Keep the 1.x web oriented dev's happy
though.

K.

[Steven Roose]

No one actually answered this question apart from pointing out Sky (which
is now Flutter), but that's an entirely different thing.

Considering the Dart VM already runs on desktops, it must be able to built
an Electron-like platform on it, just like Electron builds on NodeJS.

I guess the Chrome team at Google fears that that will draw attention for
Web-based desktop apps away from Chrome Apps.. However Chrome Apps lack a
lot of basic IO capabilities that Electron/NodeJS/dart:io can provide.

So, can someone from the team let us know if this is ever discussed or
considered? Or should be all just use Electron with node_io.dart and
compiled JS?


Thanks
Steven

Post by Suguru Inatomi
Electron(old name "Atom-shell") is an awesome approach to package an web
application with the browser to make native desktop apps.
By the way, Dart has Dartium. Something like Electron for Dart have been
planned in the team?

['Bob Nystrom' via Dart Misc]

Post by Steven Roose
So, can someone from the team let us know if this is ever discussed or
considered?

I can't recall it coming up.

That doesn't mean it's a bad idea, just that's it not a product we, the
Dart team, have put effort into. We're more a language team than a platform
team, so most of our focus is on making Dart work well for platforms that
are already successful (the web) or that other teams are driving forward
(Flutter).

If some other team appeared and started cranking on an Electron-like shell
for Dart, I'm sure we'd be happy to support them and help them succeed, but
it's not something I think we'd be likely to take the initiative on. (With
the usual caveat that I'm just an engineer on the team so don't consider
any of this a promise, binding agreement, prediction, official team
position, etc. :) )

Cheers!

– bob

[Benjamin Strauß]

I think at this point it would make more sense to "just" write the desktop
backends for flutter. The framework was written with platform abstractions
from the very beginning, so i guess it would not be that hard. I'm sure the
flutter team would help if someone from the community would be like to do
that. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with C++. :)

Post by Steven Roose
No one actually answered this question apart from pointing out Sky (which
is now Flutter), but that's an entirely different thing.
Considering the Dart VM already runs on desktops, it must be able to built
an Electron-like platform on it, just like Electron builds on NodeJS.
I guess the Chrome team at Google fears that that will draw attention for
Web-based desktop apps away from Chrome Apps.. However Chrome Apps lack a
lot of basic IO capabilities that Electron/NodeJS/dart:io can provide.
So, can someone from the team let us know if this is ever discussed or
considered? Or should be all just use Electron with node_io.dart and
compiled JS?
Thanks
Steven

Post by Suguru Inatomi
Electron(old name "Atom-shell") is an awesome approach to package an web
application with the browser to make native desktop apps.
By the way, Dart has Dartium. Something like Electron for Dart have been
planned in the team?

[Steven Roose]

@Benjamin
You are probably right. However, Flutter works entirely different. electron
(aka node-webkit) allows you to use web technologies to build desktop apps.

Currently at least, Flutter uses a widget-based API for doing UI.

Post by Benjamin Strauß
I think at this point it would make more sense to "just" write the desktop
backends for flutter. The framework was written with platform abstractions
from the very beginning, so i guess it would not be that hard. I'm sure the
flutter team would help if someone from the community would be like to do
that. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with C++. :)

Post by Steven Roose
No one actually answered this question apart from pointing out Sky (which
is now Flutter), but that's an entirely different thing.
Considering the Dart VM already runs on desktops, it must be able to
built an Electron-like platform on it, just like Electron builds on NodeJS.
I guess the Chrome team at Google fears that that will draw attention for
Web-based desktop apps away from Chrome Apps.. However Chrome Apps lack a
lot of basic IO capabilities that Electron/NodeJS/dart:io can provide.
So, can someone from the team let us know if this is ever discussed or
considered? Or should be all just use Electron with node_io.dart and
compiled JS?
Thanks
Steven

Post by Suguru Inatomi
Electron(old name "Atom-shell") is an awesome approach to package an web
application with the browser to make native desktop apps.
By the way, Dart has Dartium. Something like Electron for Dart have been
planned in the team?

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[Benjamin Strauß]

I think not relying on the web stack and all of its quirks and baggage is a good thing. :)