Is forking a platform the only way to do rust FFI? · beginners

Hypothetically speaking, how would I do FFI from roc code an existing rust library?

I'm vaguely aware that there has been and idea for something like platform plug-ins? But that's.. not a thing? right?

superfluous details about my use-case

...you don't need this wall of text to understand my question, but if you're curious for context, here it is.

I really like building things for the Matrix protocol.
I like to build special-purpose clients and bots.
For writing bots I've just been using python (it's what I'm used to).
It's all HTTP-based, so Elm has been very nice for building web clients.
But some things are just not feasible to implement myself in Elm; for example a proper end-to-end encryption implementation. It needs to be fast and secure, and I'm not that good.
I could do use elm ports and make bindings for some JS library, but... that sounds like a quick way introduce way more JS in my app than I want there to be.

I want to start using the matrix-rust-sdk, which a lot of matrix projects have been converging on. It has end-to-end encryption and all the fancy stuff I need. It works both natively and for wasm!

I wrote a small experiment of a client webapp in rust with yew. It's alright, but it's far less friendly than Elm.
Of course I could use rust for writing bots and other server-side stuff as well.

Maybe Roc could be great for this?

If my understandings of Roc platforms is correct (it probably isn't), my very hypothetical plan would be something like this:
- fork basic_cli and write add matrix-rust-sdk bindings to make a matrix-bot platform
- fork virtual-dom and add the matrix-rust-sdk bindings to make a matrix-webapp platform
- fork the webserver platform and add the matrix-rust-sdk bindings to make a matrix-appservice platform (matrix appservices need to respond to http requests)

Does that seem like a reasonable way to go?

Brendan Hansknecht (Dec 04 2023 at 19:06):

Brendan Hansknecht (Dec 04 2023 at 19:09):

Yep. Fork, add matrix library. Maybe trim some unneeded stuff or customize the platform otherwise. Then build on that.

Asbjørn Olling (Dec 04 2023 at 19:23):

LoipesMas (Dec 04 2023 at 19:46):

I still have a limited understanding of platforms, but I think that having to do matrix-bot platform is actually a good thing. Because you could set it up so that the Roc code just provides callbacks for the hooks (and some configuration probably? or maybe just a path to a file and the platform will handle that) and the platform would handle setup, connecting to the server, setting callbacks. So the platform would be like a framework, exposing only what's needed. Is this the idea?

Brendan Hansknecht (Dec 04 2023 at 19:49):

That would be an amazingly well scope platform that would hopefully expose a really nice and focused matrix related api

Asbjørn Olling (Dec 04 2023 at 20:14):

Huh that's a cool idea. I haven't thought much about the API of a matrix platform, I guess I was figuring it'd be a lot of request/response managed effects / a lot of generic Task stuff, that should just map directly to the types and functions in matrix-rust-sdk.
Thinking about where platform/application boundaries are drawn is super interesting.
I really like the idea of a high-level Matrix bot platform.

Stream: beginners

Topic: Is forking a platform the only way to do rust FFI?

Asbjørn Olling (Dec 04 2023 at 19:02):

Brendan Hansknecht (Dec 04 2023 at 19:06):

Brendan Hansknecht (Dec 04 2023 at 19:09):

Asbjørn Olling (Dec 04 2023 at 19:23):

LoipesMas (Dec 04 2023 at 19:46):

Brendan Hansknecht (Dec 04 2023 at 19:49):

Brendan Hansknecht (Dec 04 2023 at 19:49):

Asbjørn Olling (Dec 04 2023 at 20:14):