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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)

#651

Post by astrobe_ »

roryisok wrote: post #289
matthewmacleod wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense . Desktop apps have been frequently released since forever. The underlying issue here is that Electron reduces the barrier to entry for cross-platform development . That is, it's cheaper to build a single cross-platform application in Electron than it is to build two or three native applications, and you can re-use your existing web experience. I can completely understand why companies might choose th…

This issue is so furiously divisive, and I feel like it brings out the worst in HN. I'm from a web dev background. Some of the comments here make me feel like I should be ashamed of that fact. I can see both sides of this argument (every time it comes up) As a consumer of apps, I want the leanest, most minimalist, fastest thing going. I want native apps on my devices (If you think slack is a hog on the desktop you sh…

> This issue is so furiously divisive, and I feel like it brings out the worst in HN. I'm from a web dev background. Some of the comments here make me feel like I should be ashamed of that fact.

I'm an embedded devices programmer and I'm proud of it. Proud to know a little bit about my hardware, and proud to get the most out of it. And I'm ashamed when I find a more efficient way to do something: it's not an optimisation but a bug fix.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#652

Post by daenney »

nnain wrote: post #410
apo wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... I couldn't get either one [Spotify or Atom] to reproducibly use lots of CPU. Props to everyone involved in fixing that. It seems deceiving to conceal that information when your call to action is to ditch Electron for the sake of performance.

The original blog post is from Oct 2016... can't reproduce the bug now. That's ok; not deceiving.

It's not at all clear from their statement that they tried to reproduce that now, and not that they attempted that in 2016 and didn't manage to.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#653

Post by Klathmon »

hashhar wrote: post #428
newhere420 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electron applications are shite in comparison with proper native applications. They fail to integrate with the host platform, they are slow, they hog memory and drink power. Are they though? The two applications that use the most energy on my Mac - by far - are Steam and Skype. Steam still has trouble with HiDPI and freezes when performing various UI interactions. The number of problems with Skype are uncountable.…

Most of the Electron apps use multiple processes so you'll want to add up all their instances.

And simply adding up all the processes will count all the shared memory multiple times (which will greatly inflate the "final number" to much larger than it really is)

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#654

Post by jhasse »

lima wrote: post #594
jhasse wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But aren't those two only for getting better performance for web apps? Chrome Apps actually help getting a web app integrated into the OS, I don't see where (P)NaCl helps me with that.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#655

Post by golergka »

skratlo wrote: post #566
dilap wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downloaded this and signed up just to give it a try, since I've never used a Qt app on the Mac that didn't fall in the uncanny valley of UI -- trying to be native, but failing. This doesn't break the trend. Some problems: - Text boxes are non-native and do not support any standard keystrokes for navigation (this is huge!) - The division between the titlebar and the main app body is weird looking - Highlighting arou…

Mac citizen. Perhaps you should think of your computer as a thing computing things and showing them on the screen. There were many people in history obsessed with uniformity and it usually didn't end well. Yes, uniformity in UI has benefits, but you should appreciate every single deviation from that. In this case, it's the price for "write once, run everywhere", something that isn't appreciated by Apple and Microsoft…

Appreciate something that has no value for you? Why?

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#656

Post by LeoNatan25 »

krisdol wrote: post #622
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VS Code is not an IDE in the classic sense of what IDE is - integrated development environment. It's a text editor with some debugging extensions. I don't think it is even comparable to Visual Studio at all.

That line is getting really blurry with both Atom and VSCode. Haven't used VSCode, but the only feature I recall missing in Atom right now is refactoring; and to be fair, last time I used a real IDE (XCode), I couldn't refactor there either.

For me, refactoring is something that is nice to have, certainly, but not what defines an IDE. The debugging and development facilities are what matter most.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#657

Post by Afforess »

tempodox wrote: post #58

> Also all you web devs: Go learn C or Rust or something. Your program runs on a computer. Until you know how that computer works, you're doomed. I can only encourage everyone to heed this advice.

Won't happen. All the signs point to more and more developers understanding less and less of what is going on underneath the covers.

If anything, we are < 50 years away from only AI and machine learning algorithms understanding chip design and microcode. Soon enough, no human is going to be able to parse the tech stack below the operating system.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#658

Post by michaelmrose »

sametmax wrote: post #523
edko wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java also has JavaFX, which comes with an embedded Webkit browser. I can create my UI with React, or any other HTML/CSS/JS library, and make it interact with code written in Java, Scala, Groovy, Clojure, Kotlin, Ceylon, Frege, etc. very easily. I think this provides all the benefits of Electron, but is even more flexible and powerful.

Yet, this is not as popular as electron. Ask yourself why.

This is basically a terrible argument in and of itself you would do better to flesh out why yourself instead of expecting everyone to conclude your self evident correctness.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#659

Post by daenney »

skratlo wrote: post #566
dilap wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downloaded this and signed up just to give it a try, since I've never used a Qt app on the Mac that didn't fall in the uncanny valley of UI -- trying to be native, but failing. This doesn't break the trend. Some problems: - Text boxes are non-native and do not support any standard keystrokes for navigation (this is huge!) - The division between the titlebar and the main app body is weird looking - Highlighting arou…

Mac citizen. Perhaps you should think of your computer as a thing computing things and showing them on the screen. There were many people in history obsessed with uniformity and it usually didn't end well. Yes, uniformity in UI has benefits, but you should appreciate every single deviation from that. In this case, it's the price for "write once, run everywhere", something that isn't appreciated by Apple and Microsoft…

> There were many people in history obsessed with uniformity and it usually didn't end well.

Right yes. Lets argue against uniformity in the (visual) design of a UI based on pulling in all of known history and the atrocities that have been committed during that time.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#660

Post by erikpukinskis »

endless1234 wrote: post #650
jernfrost wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What planet are you on? I've been using great native apps since forever. I don't know what it is but there is a certain segment of the computer user population who don't seem to notice that awesome native apps exists for all sorts of stuff. "actual dev time per feature (easily 10x the cost)" Yeah seriously what PLANET ARE YOU ON!!! I can make native app functionality in a fraction of the time it takes to do it in a h…

>I can make native app functionality in a fraction of the time it takes to do it in a horrible mess of a language that is JavaScript. Why is Electron and similar so popular then, if it's easier to build native? Please don't say "because shitty hipsters".

He's right, and you're right. Web technologies have a low barrier to entry, so it's easy to go from inexperienced to productive.

Advanced native tools with a powerful language in the hands of a master programmer will be much more productive for the reasons he cites. The type system in particular, with a well-worn toolbox of primitives can make you extremely effective.

So, web technologies are more effective in aggregate across the entire industry, but native technologies can be more effective in the hands of an experienced single individual.

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