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Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

josephg.com

951–960 of 1001 posts

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#951
post #926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And because it's a closed-source, expensive implementation of IRC.

With no fuss history

Honestly, though, the in-client search sucks. I'd much rather search archived text IRC logs through some web interface or locally than try and find something from 6 months ago within Slack.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#952
post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, so you've create or are trying to create (or make cross-platform) something like a web dev environment in and for Object Pascal?

We have a product for web development in Object Pascal, Elevate Web Builder ( http://www.elevatesoft.com/products?category=ewb&type=web ) that includes an IDE with a WYSIWYG design environment (the IDE is written in Delphi for Windows). In order to supply the design environment, we had to write an emulation layer that mimics the DOM tree and can perform the necessary drawing operations to satisfy all DOM CSS style pr…

Got it now, thanks. Interesting stuff.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#953
post #894

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:…

You don't actually need to use derogatory words at all to win the argument. In fact, your more likely to change a person's mind if you avoid personal attacks like 'dork' and 'neckbeard bullshit'.

I know you're right. Being level headed is something I need to work on.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#954

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your non-technical users are capable of noticing that a certain application makes their computer slow or drains their battery or doesn't support a certain feature of their platform. It may take them longer to notice, and they won't know why, but that won't stop them from switching if a better alternative comes along. Delivering high-quality web apps generally requires knowing JavaScript and CSS. Delivering high-quali…

I'm honest with myself. I'm not disputing that Electron is not the most optimal way to create a desktop app, I'm saying that it makes desktop development (particularly cross-platform development) faster and easier. I know I could make a more efficient app by going native. And hopefully in time, I will. But for the sake of getting it out the door I'll most likely go the Electron route.

I meant that as a general statement, not a challenge to you specifically. I wish I'd phrased it more kindly, because dismissing criticisms as "hatred" and implying that non-technical users don't care about battery life are the sort of thing I'm advocating against.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#955
post #927
post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have I talked about VGUI? No. Valve used a very ubscure/niche HTML render engine initially for Steam (2006). The company/website behind that isn't online anymore. An older version of the Wiki had some brief info, but all these info vanished.

Stop spewing bullshit. Here's an old revision from 2005 by a Valve employee confirming Steam used VGUI back then. https://developer.valvesoftware.com/w/index.php?title=VGUI_D...

It talks about the Steam overlay. Parts of the Steam application were always HTML. First the little known HTML renderer from a defunct company, than Trident and later CEF.

search for HTML: http://www.plastic-warfare.com/SteamUIGray.zip

Funny how the old things stay online. Notice also the cyber cafés menu entry. http://www.steampowered.com/status/game_stats.html

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#956
post #852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] oblivious as you are to the real issues [...] I understand that you're frustrated, but this kind of language does not foster productive discourse. As I understand it, Nylas (grinich's OSS Email product/platform) wouldn't have been possible to build with a two-person dev team had they chosen to implement it in something other than Electron. Are you suggesting we're better off without competitors to the existin…

> Are you suggesting we're better off without competitors to the existing email desktop-clients? This is a false dichotomy and you are aware of that fact. This polarization shouldn't exist in the first place. And it can be eliminated with a small time investment. As developers of important apps, your contribution to the world influences culture. Other follow in your wake. Is that the influence to the world you really…

When you are a startup, time to market is literally the only priority.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#957
Electron has its place, but I'm not entirely certain touting Electron-powered text editors is a satisfactory success story. The success story is on the business side, IMO: it is another write once, deploy everywhere mechanism. Text editors are a very personal choice, but if I had to choose between an Electron-based text editor or Emacs in say, a developing world context, Emacs would win every time because re-purposing a 5+ year old laptop that only gets power from a solar panel is feasible with Emacs, at the cost of a steep learning curve. There are always tradeoffs.

Electron is very suitable for the particular contexts that it fits within, and OP made some salient points that there are some settings where it clashes with user demands. For the paying market that say, Slack cares about though, they are not sensitive to the tradeoffs made to run Electron underneath to the point that it hurts Slack's revenue to a level Slack cares about. This opens up an opportunity for someone else to step in and take the niche that Slack has currently declined to occupy, and that's not a bad outcome.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#958

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I too can pick a few ridiculous outliers Those examples aren't event good, though. They all seems to be becoming less popular these days.

Let me know what web apps are better than the desktop apps that were mentioned. They are just as popular as they have ever been.

> They are just as popular as they have ever been

This can't be true seeing as Google Docs is used by many companies and students.

And "better" may not be the goal of many web apps. They may be trying to measure success by "convenience" rather than being objectively "better".

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#959
post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dorks who care about programming, and programmers who care about creating deliverable value." I'd rather have 95% of the code on my machines written by those from the former camp. And if you think about it, the 5% of it is the stuff that comes & goes. Slack? Big now, but will anyone remember it in 5 years after the next big thing? So which camp is generating the true "value"?

Did you post this from a browser or using CURL? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.

And what was organizing your memory regions as you posted that? Some piece of javascript written by some hipster second week out of a hacker bootcamp or a properly designed malloc implementation?

Not everything is what's visible on the surface.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#960

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does an app bundling Electron in that way differ from an app using a native embedded browser widget (other than that it can run in Chrome vs. Edge/Safari/etc.)?

> using a native embedded browser widget (other than that it can run in Chrome vs. Edge/Safari/etc.)? I didn't know that was possible, do people do that?

Not too many apps do it, but it is possible.

https://developer.apple.com/reference/webkit/wkwebview

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/windows.ui.xaml.con...

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