Perhaps one of the most mind-boggling parts of this project is it has a hand-rolled parser for the subset of C++ that it can emit. All implemented in a single header. Equal parts impressive and crazy.
What does this comment mean? Since not particularly well-versed in programming, all I understood was that this project has something that can read data? What is impressive about a tool that can read C++?
C++ is a notoriously difficult language to parse [1], so hand-rolling a parser (even for a subset of the language) is an impressive feat. It's also interesting that they decided to implement their own tokenizer and lexer instead of using something "off the shelf".
Given that Python appears to be the new VB6/VBA (in terms of adoption by a non-SWE user base), IMO there's still a gap for a decent VB6-like RAD experience within the Python ecosystem.
Qt Designer exists, but PyQt/PySide licencing can cause headaches.
Interface Builder and Project Center on NeXTstep were amazing --- see Steve Job's 5-minute word processor demo.
For a large-scale real world project example consider that the NeXT version of Wordperfect was done is 6 weeks or so --- granted it started w/ a working Unix version, but it felt fully native and nicely polished (and was much better than the Windows version).
... or a more full featured experience than Delphi.
VB fails (or used to, haven't worked with it in a looong time) when you want to do custom controls and integrate them in the UI builder. With Delphi that used to be piss easy, you could even write designer-only methods that helped with custom configuring your controls, while with VB you had to do it in something else iirc. Too bad Embarcadero only wants to sell to enterprises that are stuck on legacy applications.
And what's with all the Pascal hate? Missing your <> and {}? Nothing wrong with begin and end.
What I wonder is: if the Rust crowd is hell bent on rewriting everything, why don't they clone the VCL and the GUI designer?
> Is the parsing part just to read it's own code it generates?
It would seem so. Their hand-rolled parser handles only a subset of the language. E.g. it hard-codes recognition for stl containers, and presumably only the ones that it might emit in generated code.
There's no AST built, at least not at this level. It tokenizes and lexes, and seems to leave it up to the caller to understand how to pump the parsing "state machine".
I've thought about making a RAD IDE for another language, and I'm kind of stuck wondering on strategies for stuff like this, I'd much rather just store the GUI info in another format like XML and only parse source files for things like methods that shouldn't be overriden when someone moves something.
I really wish we'd go back to having a lot more RAD tools.
A multi-platform, minimal dependency project such as this is a perfect fit for targeting wasm, which of course is "just" another platform (not sure what additional dependencies you think it would need?)
You can see the interface while you're designing it. Meaning, instead of writing a bunch of code, compiling, running, deciding one widget needs to be moved a bit you can just see it and move it.
Shouldn't it be "for the Dear library" given that the dear-imgui creator has stated it's named "dear"? (IMGUI means immediate-mode GUI, and ocornut has said he was inspired by another IMGUI named "simgui" [] )
> I renamed it to "dear imgui" (about 15 months later) because "imgui" has been hogging up the whole acronym. I am sorry for the confusion caused even today.
Dear ImGui is the full official name, but it's still extremely common to refer to it simply as ImGui (that's what the namespace is called, etc). It's definitely not just "Dear".
Readit News
https://github.com/tpecholt/imrad/blob/main/src/cpp_parser.h
Would appreciate if someone can explain, thanks!
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_vexing_parse
https://www.lazarus-ide.org/
It’s Pascal instead of BASIC, which may or may not be an improvement depending on your perspective.
Qt Designer exists, but PyQt/PySide licencing can cause headaches.
For a large-scale real world project example consider that the NeXT version of Wordperfect was done is 6 weeks or so --- granted it started w/ a working Unix version, but it felt fully native and nicely polished (and was much better than the Windows version).
VB fails (or used to, haven't worked with it in a looong time) when you want to do custom controls and integrate them in the UI builder. With Delphi that used to be piss easy, you could even write designer-only methods that helped with custom configuring your controls, while with VB you had to do it in something else iirc. Too bad Embarcadero only wants to sell to enterprises that are stuck on legacy applications.
And what's with all the Pascal hate? Missing your <> and {}? Nothing wrong with begin and end.
What I wonder is: if the Rust crowd is hell bent on rewriting everything, why don't they clone the VCL and the GUI designer?
I have some good memories.
> It generates and parses C++ code which can be directly used in your application.
Is the parsing part just to read it's own code it generates?
> Is the parsing part just to read it's own code it generates?
It would seem so. Their hand-rolled parser handles only a subset of the language. E.g. it hard-codes recognition for stl containers, and presumably only the ones that it might emit in generated code.
There's no AST built, at least not at this level. It tokenizes and lexes, and seems to leave it up to the caller to understand how to pump the parsing "state machine".
AST building and codegen appears to be done in this >9000LOC file - https://github.com/tpecholt/imrad/blob/main/src/node.cpp
I really wish we'd go back to having a lot more RAD tools.
Forgot how to install and run native applications? :)
"ImRAD runs on Windows, Linux and MacOS."
That would seem a little anathema to a imgui library aiming to be native on multiple platforms and to have minimum dependencies.
ImRAD appears to be based on GLFW as well so one would only have to follow a tutorial: https://uncovergame.com/2015/01/21/porting-a-complete-c-game...
examples:
https://web.imhex.werwolv.net
https://floooh.github.io/sokol-html5/imgui-sapp.html
You also save time writing a ton of boilerplate.
> I renamed it to "dear imgui" (about 15 months later) because "imgui" has been hogging up the whole acronym. I am sorry for the confusion caused even today.
[] https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/issues/7892