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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)

#741

Post by smokeyj »

4D1 wrote: post #716
smokeyj wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's derogatory enough. There's always these same rehashed arguments against electron - and it's always because of the same reason. The developer thinks he's a special snowflake and knows something that everyone else doesn't. He knows the "right way" and everyone else is dumb for not realizing it. FTA: It turns out modern operating systems already have nice, fast UI libraries. So use them you clod! FTA:…

One problem, you cant optimize at all with electron, you are stuck with shoving a complete web browser solution into your program to make a GUI. You are stuck with a massive amount of dependencies (html/css parser, javascript VM...) to various massive projects for what, easy cross platform support? Sure cross platform GUI's have been a problem, but any developer can agree that dependency to this level within professi…

Your solution to memory leaks is using a lower-level language? I should probably stop reading there..

How do you make SSL connections? How do you parse JSON api's? How do you play audio, integrate with platform features (menu bars, dock dropping etc)? How do you create P2P WebRTC connections that capture camera and mic inputs? Let me guess, you have libraries for that.

People keep bringing this up because they're insecure about their role as programmers in a world where creating useful functionality is becoming easier and more accessable. People keep bringing this up because they don't comprehend what business requirements actually are and the cost of rolling your own technology and battle testing it.

I promise you. We're not all stupid. That's all I'm asking of people to consider before they start solving all the world's problems.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#742

Post by pharrington »

Rapzid wrote: post #717
pharrington wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that despite how good it feels, individuals simply optimizing their individual activity does not scale to the societal scope. Post-agrarian humans literally behave and think via shared infrastructure. The only way individuals can make lasting improvements to society is to improve the infrastructure.

Individuals changing their behaviour can lead to societal change though.

Yes, but you are talking about contingencies. Optimism over dice rolls cannot excuse wasteful systems.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#743

Post by abiox »

jwilk wrote: post #724
collyw wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because English is the most spoken language in the world perhaps? Its even more noticeable in tech, because a lot of docs only seem to be in English.

I'm pretty sure the most spoken language is Chinese.

chinese is the most spoken native language.

english is the most spoken secondary language.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#744

Post by mlsarecmg »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #398
mlsarecmg wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is scared of C# and Swift, XAML and so on, but these technologies aren't even close to what you have available on the web. React and Redux make apps possible that you wouldn't get with older technologies, not even with 10 times the effort and code. The animation possibilities, transitions, the flexibility overall, the eco system, debugging capabilities, hot module reload - if you have worked with it, you will…

Ah, the wonders of discovering the observer pattern. It's really a life "changer". How did the computer world survive for so many decades without it.

Explain? Redux isn't even close to observables in other systems. It's the immutable pattern that's a life changer if anything.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#745

Post by eyko »

charlieflowers wrote: post #647
jernfrost wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electron apps I've seen don't really have much UI. As soon as you build an app with some complexity it will start being a problem. As a native Mac developer I can drop in things like a predicate editor for defining filters or queries. They come with Cocoa. I can put in sophisticated table views and tree views. I can connect all of this easily to core data which loads from a database objects on demand without any…

> The electron apps I've seen don't really have much UI. As soon as you build an app with some complexity it will start being a problem. Well, VSCode certainly seems to contradict this.

The GUI in VS Code is basically: a file tree view, an editor area, the command palette overlay, a status bar, and the debugger panel/area.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#746

Post by mlsarecmg »

douche wrote: post #563
mlsarecmg wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is scared of C# and Swift, XAML and so on, but these technologies aren't even close to what you have available on the web. React and Redux make apps possible that you wouldn't get with older technologies, not even with 10 times the effort and code. The animation possibilities, transitions, the flexibility overall, the eco system, debugging capabilities, hot module reload - if you have worked with it, you will…

> these technologies aren't even close to what you have available on the web Yeah, they're that much better, that we grumpy old non-JS programmers keep wondering what the big deal is when somebody comes along and rewrites something that existed 20 years ago.

That isn't the point. JS does something the others can't. It has flexibility and a community that's larger than anything you know plain and simple. Btw, i am a grumpy non JS developer, or used to be. Started with assembler, c/c++, then c#. That sums up most of my professional career. I was wrong judging JS too fast, that's all i'm saying. Many of my colleagues are still grumpy about it, they'll get over it over stay behind. If they do move on they will see what they're missing soon enough.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#747

Post by ziikutv »

anaisbetts wrote: post #74

Here's the thing. You know what the alternative to all of these Electron apps coming out is? If your answer is "A native Cocoa/WPF app", you are on another planet, the answer is, "It wouldn't exist at all". Nobody in the last 5-10 years cared about writing Desktop apps before Electron came along, there's basically zero money in it, and it's massively expensive, both in terms of actual dev time per feature (easily 10x…

There was also node-webkit. Never forget.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#748

Post by abalone »

There actually is a Flash for the desktop. It's called Adobe AIR. And it suffers from the same CPU/energy hog problems.

I do wish big, well-funded companies would invest is proper native apps. I get that making it easy to crank out cross-platform apps has benefits, but is it really too much to ask for nice native implementations of our most important tools?

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#749

Post by bhargav »

Electron is flourishing because of low barrier to entry like many already touted. But lets ask something [probably] more constructive?

I've made 3 apps with Electron that I could probably never make since I would be busy learning OS specific things.

Can we not have low barrier to entry for creating native apps? Are there any solutions/frameworks that one can utilize? Is it just a matter of poor documentation/support from OS makers? What is it?

Edit: Some of the contents that said something along the lines of: Is it really slow? It opens so fast for me...

The worse thing a developer can do is judge their application anecdotally and not through something more empirical. Its our job to make our shit available to more users and support more platforms (hence Electron is used) but it is also our responsibility to make sure they can use our app and have 50 tabs open and do other more important shit like... watching genitals in a flash player. I was in this Electron phase but I started to run traces and see how much of a hog it is.

If you really care about what you are working on, use Electron as a prototype, get it out there, then start making a native app. I think this is the best of both worlds. You get your shit out there, people let you know how it stinks and in the mean time you make something that is better suited for their OS.

P.S: Sorry for the overuse of "shit". I am fishing for upvotes.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#750

Post by ziikutv »

AlphaSite wrote: post #579
ballenf wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... Electron applications are shite in comparison with proper native applications. Is that true from a user's perspective? The average user I know would not have the idea that Slack is somehow inherently worse than say MS Word or any other truly native app they use everyday. What would Slack gain by integrating better with my Mac? Slack starts up too fast for me to read the little quotation (penultimate Macbook Pro…

I actively don't use and discourage people from using Slack where I can because of how poorly it runs.

What about Slack webpage?
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