While I generally like Lua this code just looks .. not so Lua - like, it definitely is Lua, but it could look much better by utilizing language features like "Parenthesis-free calls":
I had a similar impression. It feels "not idiomatic". I disagree on the diagostic though - I think parenthesis-free calls are not what define what idiomatic lua is.
To me it is more about expressiveness and usage of basic language features. For example here's how a text field is set up currently.
ito.TextField(draft)
:label("Name")
:focused()
:on_submit(function(value)
if value:match("%S") then
phase.value = "review"
end
end)
:on_cancel(function()
phase.value = "choose"
end),
The field is created on the first line, and then altered further with subsequent method calls that alter it. This reads like someone very used to Rust (and its Builder pattern) and then translating it verbatim to Lua. A more native Lua interface for me would look like this:
ito.TextField(draft, {
label = "Name",
focused = true,
on_submit = function(value)
if value:match("%S") then
phase.value = "review"
end
end,
on_cancel = function()
phase.value = "choose"
end),
})
As in: just pass a table to the builder. And if they ned to modify it later, they can just do:
some_textfield.on_cancel = <some other function>
No need to "guard" the internal table with those extra methods.
Since you mentioned you're Neovim nerds: you may enjoy this: I build a declarative rendering engine on top of Neovim itself: morph.nvim [1]. Every Neovim install already has a grid, extmarks, floating windows, and a Lua runtime. On top of morph, I've dog-fooded 14+ interactive TUI applets -- docker, k8s, systemd, AWS, GitHub, HN reader [2].
Aside from declarative rendering, morph does a lot of other stuff: region-specific keymaps, read-only regions, extmark creation/managment/etc.
Great job! The declarative API looks sick! I'll try it. Sometimes I love to think that if our universe is really infinite, then somewhere there's a universe where the browsers supports native luajit scripting instead of javascript(and in another universe all of this plus array indexes starting from 0 ;)
I do find it funny how TUIs are trying to become increasingly ergonomic with more friendly UX.. to the point where they're basically just becoming GUIs.
There have been GUI like TUIs for as long as TUIs have been a thing. Eg Borland Turbo Vision, Microsoft QBasic and pretty much anything written using ncurses.
To me it is more about expressiveness and usage of basic language features. For example here's how a text field is set up currently.
The field is created on the first line, and then altered further with subsequent method calls that alter it. This reads like someone very used to Rust (and its Builder pattern) and then translating it verbatim to Lua. A more native Lua interface for me would look like this: As in: just pass a table to the builder. And if they ned to modify it later, they can just do: No need to "guard" the internal table with those extra methods.maybe it’s a bad idea :X
Since you mentioned you're Neovim nerds: you may enjoy this: I build a declarative rendering engine on top of Neovim itself: morph.nvim [1]. Every Neovim install already has a grid, extmarks, floating windows, and a Lua runtime. On top of morph, I've dog-fooded 14+ interactive TUI applets -- docker, k8s, systemd, AWS, GitHub, HN reader [2].
Aside from declarative rendering, morph does a lot of other stuff: region-specific keymaps, read-only regions, extmark creation/managment/etc.
[1] https://github.com/jrop/morph.nvim
[2] https://github.com/jrop/tuis.nvim
All TUI means is that it runs in character mode.
*oh! I meant the right harness for you