lacasseio
commented
4 years ago Thanks, Daniel for this issue. I agree with you there is some clarification to write. It was hard to vocalize where the project fits given some lacking feature with the older (software model) and newer (current model) plugins from the Gradle core. However, with the upcoming version 0.4 most of the gap will be bridged and version 0.5 should close the gap and even surpass for the most part. I would be grateful if you could comment here where was your landing point in learning about Nokee. It would help me improve the documentation and the website to address the concerns and questions you raised here.
Your original assessment is accurate. The older often referred to the software model plugins, are being phased out mostly because the software model as a whole is being deprecated. The newer plugins cpp-application and cpp-library (with the Swift counterpart) were developed to speed up the software model deprecation and removal. As far as I'm aware, the development was paused and the core native support is left in a particular state. The newer plugins are more rigid making their usage easier but greatly lack features when compared to the older plugins.
Nokee is a continuous effort aiming at bringing the great potential Gradle has for the native ecosystem to reality. I have been involved with the native support in Gradle for the past 8 years. Together with a previous employer, we contracted out Gradle to add support for native in Gradle. This led to the older plugins. They were great and showed a very promising opportunity for the native ecosystem. Then the development stopped. I joined Gradle and worked on the newer plugins. To my great sadness, the development stopped again. Finally, I left Gradle and started Nokee to bring a great vision to reality.
Am I correct in assuming that Nokee and
cpp-application/cpp-libraryhave the same purpose? Or is there a distinction I'm not aware of?
The first focus of Nokee was JNI library support which rides the fine line between Java and native. The upcoming version will have equivalent plugins to the newer core native plugins, that is cpp-application, cpp-library, swift-application and swift-library. In terms of features, there shouldn't be much difference. In terms of commitment, Nokee is a continuous effort in developing world-class native support in Gradle.
Is Nokee the official successor to
cpp-application/cpp-library? Are these other plugins dead?
There hasn't been any discussion about Nokee being the official successor to cpp-application/cpp-library. To learn about the status of the core plugins, you will have to ask the Gradle team about it. I wish we could work together in cleaning up the confusion and remove any half measure what was developed but then again, Nokee is about 2 versions away from catching up with all the features offered by both newer and older core plugins.
Are the developers behind Nokee the same people that developed the other plugins? Or are there two separate teams at work?
Sort of. As I explained previously, I have being involved with both sets of plugins (as a user and a developer). I have a considerable understanding on what needs to be present to successfully address the pain in the native ecosystem. There is a lot of crossover between the software model concepts, the newer model concepts and Nokee. There are some tiny implementation differences here and there but the core concepts should be about the same. The Nokee plugins aim at offering the same plugin quality as you would expect from a core Gradle plugin. The testing infrastructure and practice are about the same. The documentation is of comparable quality (plus some the French idiom as I explaining thing ;-), feel free to comment on them so it can be improved).
For new native projects, should I choose Nokee or
cpp-application/cpp-library?
I can't actively steer you away from the Gradle core plugins. If it works for your need then it may be a good choice. As the owner of the Nokee project, I would definitely be forever grateful for any feedback you may have to improve the plugins, documentation or features you wish could be provided out of the box. We can definitely have a chat on your needs and we can work together on a plan to improve to Nokee plugins to fit your needs. I haven't written any sample for the dev.nokee.cpp-application and dev.nokee.cpp-library plugins coming up in the next release. I only wrote a quick draft for the plugin reference chapters:
- https://nokee.dev/docs/nightly/manual/cpp-application-plugin.html
- https://nokee.dev/docs/nightly/manual/cpp-library-plugin.html Unsurprisingly, it should feel about the same as the newer core native plugins. The difference lies in the implementation. In fact, the Nokee implementation is shared across all the plugins: C, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Swift, JNI and iOS. It's also what will evolve into the API for modelling multi-component native projects. This is something the older core plugins were able to do but is absent from the newer core plugins.
Sorry for the long explanation. Don't hesitate to ask more questions.
DanielSWolf
I'm new to Gradle Native, and I'm confused.
According to the Gradle documentation, the official plugins for native languages are
cpp-applicationandcpp-library. When people talk about Gradle Native, these are the plugins they refer to. And it seems that these plugins only recently (2018) replaced an older set of native plugins (c,cpp, ...).So there are the old official native plugins, the new official native plugins -- and there are the Nokee native plugins. So I'm wondering:
cpp-application/cpp-libraryhave the same purpose? Or is there a distinction I'm not aware of?cpp-application/cpp-library? Are these other plugins dead?cpp-application/cpp-library?