Smithy Roadmap

[rbalicki2]

This issue is where I document specific aspects of Smithy I would like to improve. If you have questions, please open a new issue!

Make Smithy generic

• Make Smithy generic over Event, Dom and Node type
• For example, mount can have the signature

fn mount<Node: 'static, Event, Canvas>(
  mut app: Box<dyn Component<Node = Node, Event = Event, Canvas = Canvas>>,
  mut el: Canvas,
) where
  Event: CanRegisterWith<Canvas> + 'static,
  Canvas: CanPaint<Node> + 'static,
{

(though I think we can improve upon this, as there should only be two free type variables.)

• Follow up: Derive CanRegisterWith<HtmlElement> for an enum of events, where which events are included is set via crate features.
• Follow up: Make Smithy work with another Canvas, e.g. TUI

Alternative lisp-like syntax

• The Smithy engine (i.e. the glue code that manages your component lifecycle) and the macro syntax (smd!(...)) are decoupled
• Make an alternative macro that works like

rsx![(
  div
  { attribute: "value" }
  { on_click: |_| count += 1 }
  ["current count ", count]
)]

• Priority: Low
• Status: Work ongoing

General areas of improvement

• Decrease file size
• Compile on stable
• Stability and introspection
• Fail gracefully, e.g. if DOM is modified
• Audit memory leaks, and prevent them if possible
• Better error messages
• Better documentation

Specific improvements

• Loosen restrictions on interpolated variables
• Tests of Smithy, not of just smd!
• Derive Component for more types
• Organize feature flags sanely
• Do not use thread_local!, but create instances in mount
• Allow for multiple Smithy apps on the same page
• Handling spacing after interpolated variables correctly
• Ensure that the local cache works on windows (or remove the local cache?)
• Catalog nightly features in use by smithy.
• Upgrade to the latest nightly
• Re-do the existing smd! parser
• Remove ref section if there are no ref's in an smd! node
• Benchmark performance
• Sanitize input

NOTE: if you have questions, please file new issues