D Binding to GUI libraries [was Interesting Observation from JAXLondon]

[Andre Pany]

On Sunday, 21 October 2018 at 01:32:22 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
(Abscissa) wrote:
> On 10/20/18 6:28 AM, Gregor Mückl wrote:
>> 
>> Even though web and mobile UIs seem to be the rage at the 
>> moment, I believe a solid support for desktop UIs is very 
>> important for a general purpose language, if it wants to be 
>> successful in the market.
>
> I think that may be doubly true in the case of D, given D's 
> focus on efficiency. HTML-based interfaces (whether web or app) 
> are notoriously rife with inefficiencies: That's likely to be a 
> major turn-off for exactly the very same audiences that D would 
> appeal to most.

While talking about bindings, do not forget Delphi. It has still 
a good eco system. Combining Delphi's advanced Runtime reflection 
capabilities with D's advanced compile reflection capabilities 
opens this eco system.

I created a proof of concept and the results were really 
promising. Using Delphi components is very easy and the wrapper 
code on D side is very thin.

Even clicking together a Firemonkey ui in Delphi and writing all 
code in D works fine.

Delphi is available for windows,  Mac os,  Android and IPhone. 
Linux support is somehow planned. It is free for personal use.

See an example here 
https://github.com/andre2007/delta-fmx-10-2-1/blob/master/examples/gui1/source/app.d

Due to very limited time resources I have no time to work on this 
specific topic at the moment but everyone is free to use these 
base research results.

Side remark: Lazarus (free pascal) is planning to add the same 
advanced Runtime reflection capabilities as Delphi.

Kind regards
Andre