It’s very weird that multiplatform compose plugin ...

# compose-desktop

[Daniele B]

It’s very weird that multiplatform compose plugin is org.jetbrains.compose, while the actual package is androidx.compose. Is there a plan to make domain names more consistent?

[Daniele B]

something like dev.compose would be better
(or any other “compose” domains already owned by Google or JetBrains)

[Jimmy]

From what I understand, the reason for it is that the org.jetbrains.compose packages replace the androidx.compose packages in non-android systems.
It's two different versions of compose using the same paths so that you can reuse the code without changes.

[Arkadii Ivanov]

I believe it was already discussed multiple times, every time the response was kinda "No". Last discussion was here: https://kotlinlang.slack.com/archives/CJLTWPH7S/p1613212443389800?thread_ts=1613212443.389800&cid=CJLTWPH7S
There is no official response in this particular thread though. But there were in some previous threads, as far as I remember.

[Daniele B]

@Arkadii Ivanov thanks for the link. So, there are no signals this will ever change.

[Arkadii Ivanov]

There were opposite signals, to not change package names: https://kotlinlang.slack.com/archives/C01D6HTPATV/p1604597725117200?thread_ts=1604572851.054100&cid=C01D6HTPATV

[CLOVIS]

It's really a shame. I don't think desktop devs care too much, but I'm never going to be able to pitch Compose Web to any JS dev as long as it's not renamed. It's not even worth trying.

[CLOVIS]

Of course it's far from ready yet, but as time passes it becomes harder and harder to rename, and as long as it's not renamed adoption is impossible.

[Daniele B]

It’s surely unfortunate Google doesn’t want to change the name, but why are you saying adoption is impossible with this package name?

[CLOVIS]

Imagine someone saying “Yeah, this new UI thing is really good for Android! It's really portable and should work everywhere, and it really takes advantage of the features of each specific platform! We call it SwiftUI”

[CLOVIS]

Web devs don't want to be replaced by android devs, iOS devs don't want to be replaced by web devs, etc. You can't try to pitch something “for everyone” if it requires them to use code that mentions only a specific platform

[Jimmy]

With the likes of Electron and React Native and such the lines do become a bit blurred, a web dev isn't necessarily a web dev anymore, it's just a name after all. It could be worse, for instance the packages repo url 😉

[CLOVIS]

True.

I guess it's the same with the Kotlin packages themselves. It wouldn't be good if they were called java.util everywhere, even if they are quite similar.

Honestly I'd be really happy with something as simple as kotlinx.compose. I guess it's not that bad to wait a bit though, because currently everything is Android-oriented. Hopefully with the advent of Compose Web there will be an incentive to create a multiplatform-oriented Composable collection, and maybe that can take a new package name.

[Daniele B]

kotlinx.compose sounds good to me

[gildor]

Compose Web there will be an incentive to create a multiplatform-oriented Composable collection

Collection of what? It’s not only about widgets, but core APIs of Compose also have package androidx.compose, even @Compose annotation itself

[gildor]

From what I understand, the reason for it is that the org.jetbrains.compose packages replace the androidx.compose packages in non-android systems.

It’s not correct, org.jetbrains.compose includes only things unique for Desktop/Web and developed by Jetbrains, it’s never will be able to replace all androidx.compose on which it based, it probably will be 2-way direction, some API will be added to androidx.compose to support more use cases and dropped by org.jetbrains.compose, but new, desktop/web specific APIs will be always exist in org.jetbrains.compose

I don’t think that any package changes will happen in Compose 1.x, maybe if web/desktop will be more mature and it would be initiative to create some-sort Google/JB/?? collaboration to work on Compose it possible, but it’s just speculation, and I wouldn’t expect that it would change in recent years

[eygraber]

I think I saw someone mention a while ago that the Jetpack marketing team fought to keep it AndroidX branded