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Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

josephg.com

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Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#591

Post by Dylan16807 »

MarkMc wrote: post #446
smokeyj wrote: post #403

There's two kinds of developers. Dorks who care about programming, and programmers who care about creating deliverable value. What do consumers think about electron apps? That's all that matters. Consumers don't know what the heck electron is, only that their apps work seamlessly across platforms. The only people who complain about electron apps are dorks who have an axe to grind with web developers. I'd rather have…

I completely agree with the content of your message, just wish you had used a word less derogatory than 'dorks'

I'm having a hard time thinking of a word that's less derogatory. What do you have in mind?

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#592

Post by Touche »

coldtea wrote: post #503
Touche wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C# has been the default way to write Windows apps since the early 2000s. It is no more "closer to the metal" than JavaScript.

> C# has been the default way to write Windows apps since the early 2000s. No, it really hasn't. It was just the way Microsoft proposed businesses to write bloated internal enterprise apps, what they used to use VB for. Those are not the same as desktop apps -- and no, or very very few, desktop apps, ever turned to C#. Not even MS own apps, like Office, and surely nothing like Abobe's or countless others. > It is no…

> Those are not the same as desktop apps

I mean, if you're going to say Windows Forms and WPF apps are not "desktop apps" then you're going to have to do a lot more than just declare that they aren't.

> Actually it very much is: it is statically typed, it has scalar types and contiguous memory allocation that allow for much better speeds (hence the effort to add some of those things asm.js and the like for Javascript), and it even has AOT compilation.

You're just listing ways that they are different. They both run in a virtual machine that abstracts away the actual machine. You know, the metal in the phrase "close to the metal."

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#593

Post by sovande »

harisamin wrote: post #171

A while ago I had been working on a native Mac slack app. I was 70% complete but sidelined it. Should I pick it up again? Would ppl here be interested in paying for something like that? Here are some links to screenshots so you know its not just vaporware :) https://twitter.com/harisamin/status/727634194814373889 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChkTccjVAAAZ0Kt.png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChkTcbMUkAIYolx.png

Most users will accept issues with their free program if the alternative is to pay. I'm pretty sure the message pane you have there is a WebKit controller so it is debatable how native this would be.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#594

Post by lima »

jhasse wrote: post #129
mijoharas wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome apps would have solved one of the main problems if they were still a thing (does anyone know why chrome deprecated them?). (by reusing the chrome context, your memory usage wouldn't grow unnecessarily for each new slack/spotify/whatever you open).

> does anyone know why chrome deprecated them? To push Chrome OS (where they will still be available) and to vendor lock-in people with Android apps.

Quite the opposite, they wanted to prevent vendor lock-in, so they pushed for standards like service workers and NaCL that eliminate the need for Chrome Apps.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#595

Post by lima »

mi100hael wrote: post #135
irishcoffee wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> use Qt, which limits you to either C++ or this weird langauge/ecosystem nobody knows called Qt Quick Hmm, PyQt would remove the need to use c++ if that is an issue.

Then you have to bundle and distribute Python, which is also a huge pain.

Distributing a PyQT app with PyInstaller is absolutely painless. It's a single binary and "just works", the interpreter is automatically bundled.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#596

Post by sametmax »

weberc2 wrote: post #589
sametmax wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bet ? I have 3 software opened right now using Python for their GUI: my rss reader, my torrent downloader and dropbox. And I got many more installed on my machine. But the thing is, even when I write something for myself, I first write a command line app, then a web service. Never a GUI, because it's such pain.

To be fair, your "Python GUI apps" are a very thin wrapper around C/C++ libraries.

Of course. Electron is just a layer around the chrome compiled engined as well. If you want anything to display a matrix of pixels changing rapidly, you need low level performances eventually.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#597

Post by lima »

mijoharas wrote: post #70
lazarus101 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Development time needed to create desktop apps (for Windows, Mac and Linux) given that there's already an existing webapp: - using Electron: 1 month - using QT: 2 years

Chrome apps would have solved one of the main problems if they were still a thing (does anyone know why chrome deprecated them?). (by reusing the chrome context, your memory usage wouldn't grow unnecessarily for each new slack/spotify/whatever you open).

They were deprecated because they aren't really necessary anymore now that you have things like service workers and NaCL. Never worked on mobile, too.

Progressive Web Apps is where it's at.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#598

Post by ceedan »

Mithaldu wrote: post #57
evmar wrote: post #35

I've been working on a hobby app for some years that is a modern refresh of an old idea. As the article exhorts (and just for funsies, it's just a hobby) I'm writing it using native code and to be conservative on resources. Every place I need to render text or make a thing respond to a mouse click I need to manually do all my own text layout and event handling and so on. (The app is in a domain where it needs special…

Well, the question is: Does your app run always like a daemon or just when you actually need it? It can be fine to prototype in Electron, or to make tools in it. But if you're making a chat program or anything similarly long-lived, it's the worst decision you can make for your user.

"it's the worst decision you can make for your user" - Is it? Because there are a lot of Slack users who don't care at all about your tradeoffs. Most of them don't even notice. We're just the unfortunate ones who do notice.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#599

Post by baddox »

user5994461 wrote: post #562
brightball wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real trick is whether or not users care about: A) This works on all of the platforms that we use vs B) Performance could be better on my computer It's been a LOOOOOONG time since I worked on a laptop where I experienced noticeable performance problems...which is almost entirely because SSD's make them so much less noticeable if you start dipping into swap unless you're really working out your machine. For most us…

> It's been a LOOOOOONG time since I worked on a laptop where I experienced noticeable performance problems... Really??? Because personally, I keep having performance problems on all laptops I have. Don't try running on battery saving mode, seriously. I stop counting the 5+ years old laptops that have to be upgraded, they can't watch a youtube full HD video in good conditions. ---- Fun Anecdote: I had to trial an ent…

Different people have vastly different use cases. I haven't experienced a performance issue with desktop Slack or any other (non-game) application for many years. Sure, if I look at how much RAM Slack is using I'd probably conclude that it's more than it needs to be, but I haven't had an issue with RAM usage for, gee, probably ten years.

As for battery, again, my laptop battery has been little more than a UPS for at least five years.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#600

Post by Touche »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #469
Touche wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't care about most of those things. I don't know why you didn't believe me when I wrote it the first time :). "Caret behavior", I use a Mac 8 hours a day and I have no idea what option-arrow does. That clipboard shortcuts work the same is the only one that I'm used to enough to be annoyed if it were done differently. There's something about Mac fans that are very preoccupied with all of the details of how Ma…

You don't select or navigate in text? Shift+arrows — select characters Option+arrows — jump between words or paragraphs Cmd+arrows — jump to beginning/end of line or text Shift+Option+arrows — select words or paragraphs Option+Backspace — delete one word back Cmd+A — select all I actually used all of these except the last one while writing and formatting this comment! Plus clipboard shortcuts. If you use vim in a ter…

I use Cmd+A, that's it. It has a close corollary on every OS.

> If you use vim in a terminal 100% of the time, none of those will matter to you because vim invents its own keyboard universe.

I do, and this is one of the reasons I've never bothered with all of the details and shortcuts that you like.

Vim attempts to make the best possible text editor. It doesn't let "OS conventions" dictate what makes good text editing experience. What you get from apps staying to strict OS guidelines is a bunch of average -- not terrible but not inspiring -- applications.

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