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This article makes a good point, but what's the alternative? There is no good cross-platform GUI solution. Qt, GTK, JavaFx, wxWidgets, none of them are very good. Electron at least has the advantage of being fully cross-platform and not having to learn a whole new universe if you're already familiar with the web.
This article makes a good point, but what's the alternative? There is no good cross-platform GUI solution. Qt, GTK, JavaFx, wxWidgets, none of them are very good. Electron at least has the advantage of being fully cross-platform and not having to learn a whole new universe if you're already familiar with the web.
I can understand the author's frustration with popular tools being very simple and somewhat overkill underneath, but I almost take it as a sense of frustration with himself. Electron was built to ship products as soon as possible. Most of the time, no one gives a flying fuck if the tech stack is the "right" choice and as efficient as it can be. I'd be willing to bet my net worth your users don't care at all how you b…
That's exactly right, except "what I want it to do" is not use up all my RAM.
See, I totally agree with this essay. But what are the alternatives? Getting started with Qt/GTK isn't nearly as easy, for example. Maybe someone should write an intro to native GUI programming for JS devs.
Getting started with Qt is pretty easy I'd say, at least when you use Python and not C++: import sys from PyQt4 import QtGui def window(): app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv) w = QtGui.QWidget() b = QtGui.QLabel(w) b.setText("Hello World!") w.setGeometry(100,100,200,50) b.move(50,20) w.setWindowTitle(“PyQt”) w.show() sys.exit(app.exec_()) if __name__ == '__main__': window() In general I think Qt is one of the best-doc…
b = QtGui.QLabel(w)
b.setText("Hello World!")
b = QtGui.QLabel(w, text = "Hello World!")I also can't help but feel as if the author is a beginner developer lacking a huge amount of context and experience. Saying "Electron enables lazy developers to write garbage" displays a huge misconception about software development in the very first place - garbage will be written no matter the language or platform.
Alls the article did was remind me that those who can, do, and those who can't, blog.
If writing software is about making users' lives easier, happier, or better, though, I think we ought to optimize for that and that alone.
I say let the market and communities of users decide which software they want to use. I use Nylas b/c I like the UX better than Ubuntu's Evolution, despite its flaws. I use Caret (electron markdown editor) because I wanted a cross-platform tool and I have > 4 gigs of ram. Hell, millions still use the Facebook Android app, despite the fact that it sucks down battery juice like your crazy uncle sucks down Miller Genuine Drafts before lecturing you on how terrible millennials are (happy Thanksgiving, btw).
Of course, it's important we know the trade-offs of the decisions we make, so we need critical pieces like this. But to be as prescriptive as this article is to miss the forest for the trees. Love it or not, JS is a point of entry for a hell of a lot more ppl than C++ is, so expanding its reach into new arenas is not only net-good, but I'd argue also inevitable.
That said, the article does skirt an issue I've thought about a little, and I'm interested to hear others' takes. If software collectively moves more towards higher-end systems, e.g., with SPAs and electron apps and all their cpu-intensive renders, are we further limiting a great web UX to those with the money to afford the latest laptops? We spend a lot of time thinking about accessibility standards for our products (A11Y, etc.), but when should we begin to think about accessibility from a socioeconomic perspective? Or are performant computers now so accessible that we needn't worry?
See, I totally agree with this essay. But what are the alternatives? Getting started with Qt/GTK isn't nearly as easy, for example. Maybe someone should write an intro to native GUI programming for JS devs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's 2016, people, the ship has sailed on pretending JS isn't a real programming language. Phrasing the argument the way he does just betrays his smug elitism. Using the date as an argument is also poor form. JS is a terrible programming language (I'm not denying that it is a programming language though) regardless of how popular it is (although I think I might be going against the grain here on HN, many people her…
JS is a terrible programming language I can never see the point of comments like these. Not one person who reads that will have his mind changed. HTML/CSS can be nice to have in such a situation, although a refusal to learn other GUI frameworks probably makes for a poor (native) developer. No it doesn't. Either the developer benefits or doesn't benefit from "refusing". There's only so much time in the day. I'll refus…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's 2016, people, the ship has sailed on pretending JS isn't a real programming language. Phrasing the argument the way he does just betrays his smug elitism. Using the date as an argument is also poor form. JS is a terrible programming language (I'm not denying that it is a programming language though) regardless of how popular it is (although I think I might be going against the grain here on HN, many people her…
JS is a terrible programming language I can never see the point of comments like these. Not one person who reads that will have his mind changed. HTML/CSS can be nice to have in such a situation, although a refusal to learn other GUI frameworks probably makes for a poor (native) developer. No it doesn't. Either the developer benefits or doesn't benefit from "refusing". There's only so much time in the day. I'll refus…
I wasn't expecting to change anyone's mind with that. There are more robust programming languages that don't have the same inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies and encourages better practices in general (even though it is true than you can write terrible code in any language).
> No it doesn't. Either the developer benefits or doesn't benefit from "refusing". There's only so much time in the day. I'll refuse to to learn Qt or gtk+, unless there is some overwhelming benefit for me to learn it.
That is true, but consider that the end product is not necessarily meant to be most convenient for the developer. Keeping the user in mind when making these decisions may make you consider more native and less resource-intensive alternatives. I have read in the past that Electron also posed some difficulties for screen readers, for example (although I'm not sure if that is still the case), which might not be something that impacts you as the developer, but which can make it harder for someone to make use of your software.