
Announcing Fuse Open - somebee
https://blog.fusetools.com/announcing-fuse-open-free-ea289bbf32d0
======
skrebbel
Please don't let this badly introduced blog post scare you away, because Fuse
is actually _surprisingly_ great tech for something so little known. In short,
it's a React Native competitor. You can write cross platform apps using
reactive-style JavaScript code. It ships with its own UI toolkit which is all
(compiled down to) native machine code (mostly GPU code, actually), which
makes apps perform fast because nothing that takes serious CPU/battery is done
in JavaScript.

The key selling points of Fuse over React Native are, I think:

    
    
        * Fully "write once, run everywhere" (both a plus and a minus)
        * Excellent support for all kinds of animated UX patterns
        * High level included components for many common use cases
        * Declarative XAML/JSX-like UI language easy for designers
        * Fast, highly GPU-optimized.
    

The dev tools are pretty amazing too, with instantaneous app reloads when you
make changes in your favourite editor, both when using a simulator and on a
connected device. It's like editing in the browser devtools and immediately
seeing your changes, but then on mobile. I know that React Native does this
well too, but many others don't and you might not expect stuff like this from
something you've never heard of before.

They are a VC-funded startup from Norway that lost the hype race to React
Native. I'm sad to read that they're going to mostly stop developing this
because I doubt anybody's ready to suddenly take over the cost of doing so.
Still, great that they're open sourcing it all instead of just effectively
discontinuing it and keeping it closed and unmaintained, which is what many
pivoting VC funded companies do.

I've never used Fuse in anger (only tinkered) and I'm sure it has its share of
downsides but it's a world-class contender in the world of mobile app
development toolkits, and deserves to be treated as such.

~~~
itronitron
FuseTools is a great product, it is what InVision's Sketch should be.
Hopefully Fuse goes the way of Lucene and Solr, supporting two different
companies (LucidWorks and ElasticSearch) that effectively consult to larger
organizations.

------
buserror
Ah, so not related to Filesystem in User SpacE[0] that has existed for much,
much longer time?

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_in_Userspace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_in_Userspace)

~~~
mwexler
2nded. That's exactly what I expected as well.

~~~
squarefoot
3rded. And not sure how good the name choice is anyway for them: an open fuse
is usually an indicator of something went wrong.

------
laumars
OK, so I've gotten a little way into this annoucement and still none-the-wiser
as to what Fuse Open is. The most I can work out is it's nothing to do with
filesystems (the incorrect assumption which drew me to their announcement).

~~~
theknarf
Fusetools (fusetools.com) is a cross-platform app development platform/toolkit
with a GUI builder. They just announced that their Pro plan is getting free
and open source, making it easier to make beautiful and functional mobile
apps.

~~~
peterkelly
Your comment gave a better and much shorter explanation of what Fuse is than
the blog post did, and confirmed for me that it's not related to the
identically-named filesystem tool. Thanks for the explanation :)

------
ibotty
And I was expecting something great about filesystems...

~~~
moondowner
Or something about JBoss Fuse..

------
Semaphor
For everyone confused: [https://fuse-open.github.io/](https://fuse-
open.github.io/)

> What is Fuse?

> Fuse is a cross-platform mobile app development tool suite, supporting
> building Android and iOS applications.

> With Fuse you can build native mobile user interfaces using the easy to
> learn UX Markup language, and use JavaScript to add business logic.

------
Gys
> Let Fuse build and maintain the mobile app front-end of your service, at a
> fixed price, leaving you to focus on your core business.

A fixed monthly price, but you have to signup to learn more. Like what that
fixed prices is...

------
dvh
Not mentioning what fuse is in first paragraph is epic PR fail.

~~~
stuaxo
All they had to write is "Fuse, the blahde blah blah blah is now ..."

~~~
hennsen
Well. If I’m a regular reader of a blog I definitely don’t want to read such
an explanation again and again and again...

On the top of the page i read „Create better native apps for iOS and Android
with a new...“ (iphone se and accoring screen resolution, might look different
elsewhere).

So i know the rough subject it’s about.

I agree that the first / every mention of the product name can be a hyperlink
that shows me more details/full product Website. Thats unintrusive for regular
readers and gives full info at a click for new readers.

As it is now i have to read multiple paragraphs until getting to such a link,
that can be optimized.

~~~
giancarlostoro
Could be as simple as showing an on hover tooltip above the words that not
everybody might know about (e.g. products they offer / projects).

~~~
hennsen
How/why is a tooltip (that can only contain a few words / one or two sentences
with the same info already written above as i describe it) better than a link
to the full webpage?

~~~
giancarlostoro
That works too, it's early in the east coast :)

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lsh
I think Fuse is a mobile application framework ... ?

~~~
BaconJuice
yes and?

