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Wt, C++ Web Toolkit (webtoolkit.eu)
56 points by susam on Feb 28, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 18 comments


WT has been around for years. It's interesting from a technology standpoint, but before you get too excited, TAL at their license[1].

Gui toolkits often have exceptions so that their license doesn't infect the application using it. Not wt. They have only two options, gpl and commercial.

[1] https://github.com/emweb/wt/blob/master/doc/licenses.md


For web development, GPL is not an issue for commercial applications - you are not distributing binaries to the end-user.


Wt is a frontend framework with some JavaScript components, so you are actually redistributing it.


The font-end part is already open source anyway.


In the case of Wt, the JavaScript would not be considered the source code.


Yeah this is a big gray area, because in this case the javascript is the build artifact. It's the "compiled" version on the code.

I'd love to hear a lawyer weigh in on this.


It's not a grey area at all. The GPL clearly defines source code, and Javascript build artifacts ain't it.


Sort of, but the question is whether you're producing and distributing a derived work, and I'd say that is the case, even if the parts you're distributing aren't the "important" ones.


Hah, this reminds me of high school!

For my final year project, I knew I wanted to write some kind of software, and my Programming Languages professor suggested that I pick a generic topic like "A program in C++" and then I can build whatever.

This was at a time when we just started using mobile data (GPRS) on our phones and SMS was very expensive. It's also when I met my girlfriend, now wife, and we were constantly messaging of course.

I needed a cheaper way to communicate. This was before there was WhatsApp, Signal, etc.

So I wrote Tiruriru. It consisted of:

- a Java mobile application that you could use to send messages to your contacts over GPRS - a GSM modem written in Python that would call and ring the contact's phone number 3 times when you send a message to them because no one was connected to GPRS at all times - and finally a REST api written in C++ with Wt Toolkit that was communicating with the app and the GSM modem service.

Since this used very little data it was 10x cheaper to send messages like this than to use SMS. We ended up upgrading to Android phones soon after and 2g/3g/wifi was available everywhere.

That's the story of how I wrote "A program in C++" in high school :)


I don’t understand the selling point. On the web, C++ is an absolute backend language.

Is this a C++ gui toolkit that’s meant to run in the browser?

Any shop using CPP is either going to use something mature like QT, assuming the whole thing needs to be in CPP. Otherwise they’re going to write bindings or compile to wasm. Then just go with the thousands of react/angular frameworks that are thriving with UI/UX devs. Those guys don’t wanna touch CPP.

I just don’t get who this is for.


There are a ton of C++ programmers who are now finding themselves with a need for web dev. Being C++ based and similar API/approach as Qt, you get a big head start.

Compiling to WASM is still early days. I haven't looked into it in a while but I believe that DOM manipulation still isn't 100% implemented, and accessibility is still a big challenge.


I didn’t say anything about cpp programmers who needed web devs. I’m sure there are plenty of those.

I’m saying CPP developers who need ui/ux developers, something that’s a separate discipline in itself. But also willing to touch CPP, assuming that’s what this is.

I had this recruiter with Google telling me he had a hard time finding someone who was fluent in both C++ and HTML/CSS. It was always really good at one and dabbled in the other.


Has anyone used this and can tell how styling and media query/mobile support works? Can you build PWAs with it?


From the last time this was submitted, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23812791


Have a look at the docs. I have used it for a while and it's pretty nice and effective.


Unfortunate abbreviation


How so?


I think it was intended to be reminiscent of QT and WX




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