Resolved issues: 2
Merged commits: 7
Changed files: 37
During last week I worked on improving the Appy framework by adding support for multiple rendering libraries. While this was a little bit boring in the sense that it doesn't give any visual result, the reason for doing this is that there is a lot of rapid evolution going on related to the graphics pipeline in the Rust ecosystem. In recent years, Rust has become a popular language for game development, and as a result, there has been a surge of new graphics libraries and rendering pipelines being developed. While this is an exciting time for the Rust community, it also presents challenges for developers who want to create cross-platform desktop and mobile applications.
One of the challenges is that we don't know what is going to come out as the de-facto standard for graphics rendering in Rust. As a result, developers may prefer one library over another depending on their specific use case, or even switch between libraries as their needs evolve over time. It might also be the case that one library works better for building the app for desktop, and another works better for Android and a third for iOS, even though they all in theory are cross platform.
To address this challenge, I created an abstraction related to window and open GL context creation and implemented support for SDL and Glutin inside it. This allows Appy to support multiple rendering libraries, making it easier for developers to choose the library that best suits their needs or even use multiple libraries in the same application. Apart from SDL and Glutin, another library that looks interesting is Miniquad, but I will wait with adding it until later.
By adding support for multiple rendering libraries, I hope to contribute to the broader development of open-source software and make it easier for developers to create high-quality desktop applications with Rust. With Appy, developers can focus on building their applications and not worry about low-level details like which rendering library to use. And as new libraries and rendering pipelines are developed, Appy can easily be updated to support them, making it a versatile and future-proof choice for Rust developers.
In conclusion, the rapid evolution of graphics rendering in the Rust ecosystem presents both opportunities and challenges for developers. By adding support for multiple rendering libraries in Appy, I hope to help developers navigate these challenges and create high-quality desktop applications with Rust.