Electron is flash for the desktop (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#21

Post by 01walid » Tue, Apr 11, 2017, 2:15 PM UTC

That is why I do not use Slack for Desktop, and just keep a pinned tab of Slack open almost all the time. I also tend to reduce my usage of any Electron-based app because I want to better make use of my laptop resources in my development workflow requirements.

I feel like I agree with most what's said there, the same would apply to NW.js and the likes.

This should be a heads up for GUI developers to [re]consider Qt and QML. It made real progress in the last few months. and there are some nice bindings to it.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#22

Post by josephg » Tue, Apr 11, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

toni wrote: post #4

On macOS, the alternative would be to use Fluid[1]. You can build mini-apps from a lot of websites and the footprint is very little. (No affiliation, just a happy user) [1] http://fluidapp.com/

Unless I'm missing something, isn't that just wrapping the webpage in an embedded WebView? If so its basically doing the same thing as electron, except using Safari instead of Chrome and not giving the app any native API access.

This helps in 2 ways:

- Safari is less of a resource hog than chrome

- It avoids the huge 380 meg download of electron

But it doesn't solve the runtime problems. The app is still running inside a VM (safari), so its still going to be way slower than its native equivalent and it'll use way more memory. Also in a real browser background tabs get throttled in dozens of ways. But I bet none of that throttling happens via Fluid, because even background windows can be visible at any time on macos.

I'd be curious to see a quick comparison of CPU and RAM usage of slack-for-desktop and slack-in-fluid if anyone is willing to give it a whirl. I'd do it myself except I deleted slack after writing that blog post.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#23

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 11, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

paraboul wrote: post #14

FWIW, we're working on https://github.com/nidium/Nidium presicely to fix this. A new kind of browser engine, not based on any existing engine, allowing developers to use a subset of the web (webgl, 2d, layout) without being forced to use a bloated ecosystem (and which also works on mobile and low end device). Previous HN discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314961

[deleted]

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#24

Post by krzyk » Tue, Apr 11, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

lazarus101 wrote: post #15

In most cases it's either an Electron app or no desktop app at all. It's simply not feasible to write native apps.

Then don't, it's really wasteful to have webdevs write desktop apps using Electron. I don't see a gain over using a webpage. I use slack this way and I don't see any problems.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#25

Post by fknop » Tue, Apr 11, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

Meanwhile, we're still waiting for those "pro-native" people to give us better user experience.

I agree that Electron has its issue like having multiple copies of Chromium (and not Google Chrome).

Obviously native apps are better overall, but only if they provide a better UX. Being a vscode user, I don't know which native editor provides the same UX.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#26

Post by boskonyc » Tue, Apr 11, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

Why would a tech company not build its flagship product natively on the platforms where it runs? It seems like a generation drift: an obliviousness to the world outside of JS/web dev, and a general disregard for application performance.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#27

Post by forgottenacc57 » Tue, Apr 11, 2017, 2:17 PM UTC

It's not flash for the desktop, the author just wants to say something mean about electron cause he's angry.

The flash analogy doesn't hold in any way. "Well, flash was errr ummm BAD you know.... and this electron thing it's BAD too .... err umm SAME AS FLASH!

Grumpy grump just wants to yell and stomp.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#28

Post by floatboth » Tue, Apr 11, 2017, 2:17 PM UTC

rhapsodic wrote: post #10

I wonder how a JS/HTML desktop using the Adobe AIR runtime would compare.

heh, speaking of Adobe Air, I remember Air based twitter clients running smoothly on my Eee PC 900 (single core Celeron 900 MHz!!)

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#29

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS » Tue, Apr 11, 2017, 2:18 PM UTC

paraboul wrote: post #14

FWIW, we're working on https://github.com/nidium/Nidium presicely to fix this. A new kind of browser engine, not based on any existing engine, allowing developers to use a subset of the web (webgl, 2d, layout) without being forced to use a bloated ecosystem (and which also works on mobile and low end device). Previous HN discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314961

> To build nidium you need at least 5.7GB of disk space. A build from scratch may take 30 to 90 minutes, depending of the speed of your computer.

Is this abnormally large for a project like this?

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#30

Post by alkonaut » Tue, Apr 11, 2017, 2:18 PM UTC

lazarus101 wrote: post #15

In most cases it's either an Electron app or no desktop app at all. It's simply not feasible to write native apps.

Why not? People do native mobile apps despite those platforms being more or less at parity, while desktops are overwhelmingly just one platform. The tools to write cross platform mobile apps that aren't just a browser with lipstick (like xamarin) exist for both desktop and desktop.