Native apps are better than web apps in terms of UX, but few companies have the budget to maintain both a native app and a web app (unless they can share code, as with Electron). Since most companies need a web app anyways, they have little incentive to spend the time/resources needed to develop and maintain a separate native desktop app.
Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
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Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
> no one can pirate your software/service Huh? Given how most web applications these days are using client-side rendering there's nothing stopping someone from just downloading all of the frontend assets. You can also connect to a server from your desktop application so I don't understand how desktop makes it easier to pirate anything.
Web applications have lots of essential parts on the server-side even if they do client-side rendering. And each paying user is logged in when using it, so the company can accept/deny requests depending on the user. Proprietary desktop applications are usually downloaded after a payment, and then the full software is available locally. By hacking the security parts of it one can then have a totally free version and d…
How does this address my point about being able to connect to a server from your desktop application? Just because historically companies have not deployed their product in such a fashion doesn't mean it isn't technically possible. How do you think social mobile applications work? Have you ever worked on an application that wasn't running in a browser?
> That's why it is easier to pirate.
There are no technical reasons why a desktop application is inherently easier to pirate. Only implementation details.
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#433Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is not really accurate. Qt relies on a lower level windowing system (X Window, Wayland, Cocoa, win32 etc. etc.). Qt also supports rendering directly on the GPU (or with software rendering on the framebuffer) without any windowing system such as X11 or Wayland - that's likely how it is most commonly used in the wild, as that's one of the main way to use it on embedded devices.
I'd like to see it do that on macOS ... You're seriously suggesting that the common use of Qt on Linux systems is direct rendering without the windowing system?
Not parent, but yes, sort of.
Arguably it's use in embedded contexts is much larger than desktop. It's quite popular for in-car computers, defense systems, etc.
For desktop linux, yes, it uses the windowing system.
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#434Earlier quoted context omitted.
Figma is a great tool and all but it will still take it years, if not decades, to replace immersive content creation technologies like Ventuz, one of the best in the game! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu2FnEVk9_U
Is this an ad or are you serious?
No, it’s not an ad...I posted in defense of the power that native desktop apps bring since the use case of Figma was being stretched into territories other than web/mobile UI design...immersive content/interaction creation is that category!
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#435I'm going to be slammed for using these two words, but for any real work you need to have as few layers of indirection between the user and the machine as possible, and this includes the UX, in the sense that it is tailored to the fastest and most comfortable data entry and process monitoring. I don't see any `web first` or Electron solution replacing Reaper or Blender in a foreseeable future. One exception I'm intri…
If you don't see web app replacing Blender, give a try to OnShape. I was so surprised by it. It is slower than comparable desktop app, but it is usable for real world projects.
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#436Earlier quoted context omitted.
And pay QT like 5,000 $ a year to keep it closed source. No thank you. Would rather write it 6 times. Or just use electron.
Qt doesn't require that but even if it did writing it 6 times is vastly more expensive. People would just rather spend 500k on writing it 6 times than 5k on a license because they are somehow offended at the notion of paying for dev software or tooling. It's a major reason UI coding sucks. There is no incentive for anyone to make it not suck, and the work required to build a modern UI library and tooling is far beyon…
Yeah it is. The barrier to entry into n graphics programming is huge. Just try drawing a line in vulkin
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#437Native desktop apps are great. The reason that people don't write them is because users aren't on "the desktop". "The desktop" is split between OS X and Windows, and your Windows-app-compiled-for-Mac is going to annoy Mac users and your Mac-app-compiled-for-Windows is going to annoy Windows users. Then you realize that most users of computing devices actually just use their phone for everything, and your desktop app…
> Meanwhile, your web app may not be as good as native apps, but at least you don't have to write it 6 times. I must be living in a parallel world because I use a ton of desktop apps that aren't "written 6 times" - and write a few, including a music & other things sequencer ( https://ossia.io ). Just amongst the ones running on my desktop right now, Strawberry (Qt), Firefox (their own toolkit), QtCreator (Qt), Telegr…
QT is excellent, but C++ is quite a tough pill to swallow for many. Especially as QT layers a macro system on top. I predict that native desktop apps will make a comeback when there's QT-quality cross-platform framework in a more approachable language (Rust, nim, or similar).
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#438As a long-time Win32 developer, my only answer to that question is "of course there is!" The efficiency difference between native and "modern" web stuff is easily several orders of magnitude; you can write very useful applications that are only a few KB in size, a single binary, and that same binary will work across 25 years of OS versions. Yes, computers have gotten faster and memory and disks much larger. That does…
This sentiment is why I've moved to write Elixir code professionally three years ago, and why I write Nim for all my personal projects now. I want to minimize bloat and squeeze out performance from these amazing machines we are spoiled with these days.
A few years ago I read about a developer that worked on a piece-o-shit 11 year old laptop, he made his software run fast there. By doing that, his software was screaming fast on modern hardware.
It's our responsibility to minimize our carbon footprint.
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#439As a long-time Win32 developer, my only answer to that question is "of course there is!" The efficiency difference between native and "modern" web stuff is easily several orders of magnitude; you can write very useful applications that are only a few KB in size, a single binary, and that same binary will work across 25 years of OS versions. Yes, computers have gotten faster and memory and disks much larger. That does…
You are looking back at the past with rosy goggles. What I remember from the time was how you couldn’t run that many things simultaneously. Back when the Pentium II was first released, I even had to close applications, not because the computer ran out of RAM, but because the TCP/IP stack that came with Windows 95 didn’t allow very many simultaneous connections. My web browser and my chat were causing each other to er…
FWIW i do not remember having issues like that, i had mIRC practically always open, a web browser, email application, etc and i do not remember ever having networking issues.
Internet was slow but that was largely because for the most part of the 90s i was stuck with a very slow 2400 baud modem - i got to appreciate the option that browsers had to not download images by default :-P.
But in general i do not remember being unable to run multiple programs at the same time, even when i was using Windows 3.1 (though with Win3.1 things were a bit more unstable mainly due to the cooperative multitasking).
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#440Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would argue that the web platform is one of the most optimised and performant platforms for apps.
When you say web platform do you mean a browser? Using a browser is the mosted optimised and performant over installing an application on your desktop? Curious what desktop do you run your browser under? I would give you an example of a simple video split application. A web platform requires uploading, downloading and slow processing. A local app would be hours quicker as the data is local.
No reason a video splitting app couldn't be written with client-side JS.