Modern FLOSS Application Languages

This post is looking at a couple [more] selected languages of interest to me. The primary focus is languages that are good candidates for modern graphical application development in the world of FLOSS. I primarily look for things that can work with GTK4, or that have their own dedicated GUI toolkit that is highly FLOSS oriented, and more pointedly, very FOSS compatible.

• automatic safety (garbage collection or other method)
• does not use a web engine
• high efficiency
• good for desktop applications
• forward looking features

Rolling Releases Good Not Great

Concerning Linux distros that use rolling releases.

I don't know if the rolling model completely does what it is supposed to over 2 or more years to make them far superior than something like Linux Mint, or an LTS release. Aren't they just distros that get frequent updates, rather than solving the major upgrade problem for regular users? 

Nim vs Swift

 All Posts Tagged: FLOSS Infrastructure 

This is specifically about the last post here. I forgot to talk about Nim. 

I think Nim is more directly comparable to Swift, than they are to Zig, such that it would be treated much more like a highly performant applications language like C++ is treated.

It's not like Nim clearly falls out of bounds of being a systems language, but I do not think that Nim has a clear enough focus on systems programming to be like C, Rust, and Zig.

So, the reason to bring this up is to ask the question of whether Nim or Swift could be a premier Linux applications language to dethrone C++ . . . in a tentatively serious hypothetical.

Swift and Zig

 All Posts Tagged: FLOSS Infrastructure 

Swift seems like one of the biggest opportunities for the Linux application development world. It seems to pair nicely with Zig in a few ways.

In general, Swift complements systems languages pretty well from a feature perspective. It means that systems languages are for systems programming, and Swift is for applications. And Swift does scripting well too.

• Swift and Zig are a really good fit for Linux contexts.
• They are good with each other in terms of feature coverage.
• Swift should get good interoperability from Zig, maybe Rust too
• It should also be worked on in a serious and dependable way, by a group other than Zig and/or Swift - a group who is interested in piecing all these things together, that also intends to sustain their work for a while.
• Part of this effort is to make Swift seriously interoperable with Zig on Linux, as well as make Swift very interoperable with a serious native Linux GUI tool like Qt or GTK, or maybe Iced if that pairing is not too strange of an abstraction or too far away from native performance and code translation.

Command Wiki: Backend Development

 All Posts Tagged: Command Wiki 

The elephant in the room is the plan for backend development.

This is a strange question in the real world, because I don't know how invested I am personally going to be in this project. I tend to write the ideal situation, but in reality could actually fall back quite a bit, to the closest thing I can do at a given time.

Of course falling back to different technologies is terrible, because it does not create an application that could serve as a foundation towards the more ideal one.

Command Wiki: Personal Development Intentions

 All Posts Tagged: Command Wiki 

If I personally start this project, it will definitely have to go through one or two iterations of experimental development first, so I can learn the ropes. The full version of this application is too large a project for one individual to develop. I will have to see how it pans out personally.

I am not upset by people trying to build something like this. My advice is to not do it yourself if you are not actually in love with the idea itself, as opposed to seeing a way to charge for plugins or chop the application up.

Messages can be sent to this blog to consult about its ideas if so desired. I am trying to make enough sense about it to transmit its vision.

Command Wiki: High Level Structure

 All Posts Tagged: Command Wiki 

"High Level Structure" could also be read, "High Layer Structure". It is about the expression of data structures that is made possible at the UX layer. It is specifically about how the application's users can create things at the frontend, as opposed to low layer backend programming code of the application. 

This is inclusive of:

• GUI UX tools
• Text-based syntax coding and markup UX
• Abstract models / logic models / relationship models

The concept of this high level structure is to provide basic means to creating more emergent complexity from it. It's about using these tools to provide the maximum amount of practical usability within the confines of non-professional level coding. These tools include GUI tools, markup syntax, coding syntax, and pre-configured models of abstract data representations.

Command Wiki: Daily Driving and Plugins

 All Posts Tagged: Command Wiki 

As a natural consequence to fulfilling its educational objectives, this application would also be good at serving as a daily driver. There will always be new and old information that remains on the periphery of users' minds, and there will always be new things to learn in the future.

Having the ability to serve as a way to connect knowledge with implementing the knowledge is like note taking, but it becomes something of a different animal as a whole. It's more multi-purpose than note taking.

Terminal Command and Scripting Wiki

 All Posts Tagged: Command Wiki 

3 stages of learning are:

1. mimicking and memorization
2. static perceived understanding and memorization with awkward dynamism
3. working dynamic understanding with owned knowledge and context.

(1. Child 2. Teenager 3. Adult)

This description of learning stages are major in the process of going from child to adult, but they are still very descriptive of adult learning, especially when learning very new or alien skillsets.

Almost zero software applications are built to transition users between these phases of learning.

No Names for Native Linux GUI

 All Posts Tagged: FLOSS Infrastructure 

There has probably never been such a thing as what I am talking about: You know, a "complete" native GUI stack for Linux, and then it's possible that a complete GUI stack could encompass more for native Linux than one would for web or Windows ever had.

I suppose the primary thought of this post can be summed up with a question. Once an idea of what the heck a native GUI stack constitutes, then: Are there really existent, let alone great, native Linux GUI stacks even right now in 2025?