linebender / linebender/piet

Simplify api and dependencies between piet family of crates

Open
#140 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

discussion
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
1.4k
Forks
98
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

The current structure of piet— traits defined in the `piet` crate, with lots of associated types, and then implemented in the various backends, and then exposed as aliases in `piet-common`— is complicated and fragile-feeling.

For a while I've been trying to figure out a better way to do this, based on my experience refactoring `druid-shell`, and I think I might have a satisfying solution.

## structs instead of traits define common interfaces

The basic idea for this is that we use wrapper structs to define common interfaces. Let's take the `text` module as an example. We basically translate,

```rust
pub trait Text {
type FontBuilder: FontBuilder;
type Font: Font;
type TextLayoutBuilder: TextLayoutBuilder;
type TextLayout: TextLayout;

fn new_font_by_name(&mut self, name: &str, size: f64) -> Self::FontBuilder;
fn new_text_layout(&mut self, font: &Self::Font, text: &str) -> Self::TextLayoutBuilder;
}

pub trait FontBuilder {
type Out: Font;
fn build(self) -> Result;
}

pub trait Font {}

pub trait TextLayoutBuilder {
type Out: TextLayout;
fn build(self) -> Result;
}
```

Into,

```rust
use crate::platform;

struct Text(platform::Text);
struct Font(platform::Font);
struct FontBuilder(platform::FontBuilder);
struct TextLayout(platform::TextLayout);
struct TextLayoutBuilder(platform::TextLayoutBuilder);

impl Text {
fn new_font_by_name(&mut self, name: &str, size: f64) -> FontBuilder {
self.0.new_font_by_name(name, size).into()
}

fn new_text_layout(&mut self, font: &Font, text: &str) -> TextLayoutBuilder {
self.0.new_text_layout(&font.0, text).into()
}
}

impl FontBuilder {
fn build(self) -> Result {
self.0.build().map(Into::into)
}
}

//etc
```

In this world, `piet` and `piet-common` are unified. By default, in `piet`, the 'platform' is the `NullRenderer`; but we support a "platform" feature, which uses the best backend available for the platform. If the user wants to use a _specific_ backend, they can just use it directly; the API is identical, and this is enforced by the convention of having the methods on the types in `piet` directly call identical methods on the inner type.

## Downsides

The major downside to this strategy is that it doesn't let us have functions that are generic over piet backends. This isn't impossible to overcome, however; one simple (if a bit annoying) approach is to _also_ have traits that cover this API, and which can be used when necessary. A major question to ask is whether or not we _actually_ ever anticipate having more than one piet backend in use at a time, in a way that requires us to be generic. My hunch is that this is a very speculative concern, and one we really don't need to be too concerned about.

Am I missing anything? It's very possible that I am, but from my current understanding this really feels like a solid win: we can combine two or three crates into one (`piet`, `piet-common`, `piet-test`(?)), and we can get rid of the associated types and the way they complicate the API elsewhere (the really hair type aliases like `pub type Text<'a> = as piet_common::RenderContext>::Text`) which complicate API.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by comparing the `piet`, `piet-common`, and possibly `piet-test` crates, with the `text` module as the example described in the issue. Determine whether wrapper structs can replace the associated-type traits without losing needed generic backend support; done would be an agreed architecture for consolidating the crates and simplifying the API.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
api, computer-graphics
Issue type
Refactor
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.