Yeah, a standard web_vew library being part of the C++ standard is not a good idea. It's far too huge a thing with far too many potential pitfalls and dangerous consequences, and is an overweight solution to what should be a comparatively lightweight problem.
If the goal is just to have a standard way to build basic GUI interfaces in C++, then it might make more sense to do something like adopt Tk as a UI language for C++. It's reasonably well-known, is both expansive and easy to use, and is designed specifically for creating UIs for integration into apps in other languages, with cross-platform compatibility baked in. If the goal is a high-speed graphics solution of some sort, it seems like adopting a standard such as OpenGL ES as the standard for baseline graphics in C++ would be more logical. It's already a standard, it's well-documented and well-known, and in most cases you can shunt off the majority of work to a platform runtime. On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 3:00 PM, Myk Melez <m...@mykzilla.org> wrote: > Botond Ballo wrote on 2018-07-18 09:45: > >> As we have some experience in the embedding space here at Mozilla, I >> was wondering if anyone had feedback on this embedding library >> proposal. This is an early-stage proposal, so high-level feedback on >> the design and overall approach is likely to be welcome. >> > I'm afraid that I agree with the consensus in this thread: specifying a > web_view class isn't a useful activity for the C++ standards committee to > undertake. > > The proposal notes that C++ specifies "no useful facilities" for creating > graphical interfaces, so "users either need to make use of system-specific > APIs, third-party libraries, or move to a different programming language." > > However, it doesn't explain why "system-specific APIs" and "third-party > libraries" are considered insufficient or harmful. As others have pointed > out, for languages with first-class modules and package ecosystems, > third-party libraries are a feature of a language, not a bug. And > "system-specific APIs" have their own advantages (along with downsides). > > The proposal also notes, "To be useful, we’ll need to require support for > a large number external standards (i.e., [X]HTML, CSS, SVG, ECMAScript, and > possibly others). Our three-year release cycle is likely sufficient to > maintain a proper list of such standards, but it’s still a large list, and > to be clear, the transitive closure of this list is huge." > > At the very least, this statement is worthy of more careful consideration, > given the ongoing rapid change in the web platform surface area (not to > mention implementation strategies that affect embedding APIs, such as the > move to multiple content processes). > > And it notes, "Surveying the current implementations has convinced me that > this kind of interface is appropriate for standardization, at least in the > sense that, while broadly useful, using these services from a C++ > application today requires difficult-to-get-right platform-specific code. > Moving that burden to C++ library implementers, as a result, makes sense." > > The former statement may be true, but the latter doesn't necessarily > follow; and it isn't even clear that the former is true. The author himself > demonstrates a prototype implementation that supports multiple platforms. > And the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) has similarly long provided a > cross-platform API for embedding the web into C++ applications. > > Don't such third-party libraries show that it *is* possible to use the web > in a C++ application without "difficult-to-get-right platform-specific > code"? > > (It might be that developing such a cross-platform library is itself > challenging, but that's a burden on library vendors, not application > developers.) > > Cross-platform graphical application development with C++ can be > challenging, and the web may be a solution in some cases. Indeed, Mozilla > itself has faced that challenge and used its own web implementation to help > solve it for desktop platforms. And others have solved it via third-party > libraries and system-specific APIs. > > Nevertheless, while those implementations are imperfect, and there's > plenty of scope for improvement, a minimal standard that evolves more > slowly than the web and its implementations seems like it would do more > harm than good. And thus a web_view class isn't well-suited for > specification by the C++ standards committee. > > -myk > > > _______________________________________________ > dev-platform mailing list > dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform > -- Eric Shepherd Senior Technical Writer Mozilla Blog: http://www.bitstampede.com/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/sheppy Check my Availability <https://freebusy.io/esheph...@mozilla.com> _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
