I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores • Hacker News Board

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#151

Post by eropple » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

avtar wrote: post #116

eropple wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy a completely dev-usable Mac for under $1000. (My CI machine is a Mac mini I bought used for $350 and dropped an SSD and an extra stick of RAM into.) Its "crappy dev tools" are free . This is some silly stuff right here.

How reliable is your CI machine? I don't have the log entries anymore but in the past I've seen Mac Minis that were set up as Jenkins nodes throttle hard, leading to variable job results. The Minis were running VirtualBox VMs which would arbitrarily report long running test failures. I remember thinking perhaps it was VirtualBox specific behaviour until I search for "mac mini cpu throttle" and found similar results.

For my purposes? Very reliably. But my use cases are very sporadic; I'm just exposing a webhook for my VCS and running when one of a small set of my personal projects are updated.

(It also runs a couple other small things for the house.)

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#152

Post by jsgo » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #112

mschuster91 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many HN users (myself included) dislike Electron-type apps because they feel slow and bloated. How much of this is the fault of the Electron runtime and how much is fault of the developers? When one looks at the sheer amount of code that popular frameworks (or, as I call them, crapworks) like Angular require the browser to load, compile and run, plus the resources that these apps end up gulping down... it's madness…

How much of this is the fault of the Electron runtime and how much is fault of the developers? It's completely the fault of the developer for choosing Electron when there are better tools available.

ever used VS Code?

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#153

Post by rvanmil » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

As a user I am glad Apple is the "loser" in this article and it's the reason I love iOS and hope Apple doesn't change anything in their attitude towards the "free and open" web. I do not trust the web, at all. Access the camera? Nope. The microphone? Are you kidding me. Notifications, GPS, background processing? Fuck no.

I am very happy to have Apple as a quality, security and privacy gatekeeper, because I do not have the time anymore to do that all by myself (and related to that, I'm so happy we've left the Windows era behind and I'm not bothered by friends and family anymore with all the crap and problems on their devices thanks to all the "free and open" stuff they'd download and install).

PWA's? Screw that, I hope they never become a first class citizen on Apple's platforms. It's good for Apple's business and their users to keep it that way.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#154

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

jsgo wrote: post #152

scarface74 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of this is the fault of the Electron runtime and how much is fault of the developers? It's completely the fault of the developer for choosing Electron when there are better tools available.

ever used VS Code?

Yes. I went back to Visual Studio. If I were using a Mac, I would buy Rider in a heartbeat.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#155

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

Heliosmaster wrote: post #146

scarface74 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of this is the fault of the Electron runtime and how much is fault of the developers? It's completely the fault of the developer for choosing Electron when there are better tools available.

What would you use? (honest question)

If you want a native app, use native tools for each platform to create the best user experience.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#156

Post by matthewmacleod » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #93

333c wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your distaste for native apps extend to the desktop computer? Many HN users (myself included) dislike Electron-type apps because they feel slow and bloated. On my computer, native apps are much nicer, and feel like they fit in much better with the desktop environment. If you agree that native apps on the desktop are a good thing, than I think you would agree that, for smartphone users, native mobile apps are a g…

> Many HN users (myself included) dislike Electron-type apps because they feel slow and bloated. How much of this is the fault of the Electron runtime and how much is fault of the developers? When one looks at the sheer amount of code that popular frameworks (or, as I call them, crapworks) like Angular require the browser to load, compile and run, plus the resources that these apps end up gulping down... it's madness…

Sure, using only jQuery requires lots of thinking about your code structure and it will undoubtedly be more complex. But also: orders of magnitude faster.

It’s really, really not. You might be able to pull together some specific targeted DOM manipulation that is faster in jQuery than in React, for example, but the difference is going to be minimal and the development impact substantial.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#157

Post by bartread » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #95

Grae wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the difference between $99 and $25 is make-or-break, you're probably trying to publish a hobby/low quality app anyways. Or maybe you live in a situation where $74 USD is a meaningful barrier to accessing a market. >The only people who like webapps and their encroachment on good, native apps are webapp developers because it allows them to use their skillset to build something they don't know how to build. You're e…

> You're excluding people and organizations who want to maintain a single codebase. Not my problem. Don’t shit on my user experience because what YOU want. Remember, I don’t need your product, but you need customers. As far as ethical concerns about mandatory software purchases as a prerequisite— it’s not mandatory: you don’t have to develop for iOS. Make a website instead.

> Remember, I don’t need your product, but you need customers.

This becomes much less compelling with apps built to be used within a large enterprise. At this point cost of development and maintenance become much more important, because you can always train your workforce to fudge their way around the suckass user-experience.

(Although, in principle, I agree with you and am generally not a fan of systems and products that sacrifice UX for developer expediency.)

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#158

Post by jsgo » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #154

jsgo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ever used VS Code?

Yes. I went back to Visual Studio. If I were using a Mac, I would buy Rider in a heartbeat.

Eh, I like it. It loads quickly and doesn't tap resources. I typically use Visual Studio as well, but I do it when I need to do a quick edit of a file or quickly see syntax highlighting on something to review. Basically, Electron isn't bad. It is most likely the fault of the implementer if it goes that direction.

I think Brackets is served in Electron as well and that seems to be a lesser quality implementation. I like Brackets, but the performance is somewhere between VS Code and a full fledged IDE.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#159

Post by abrowne » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 6:20 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #86

limeblack wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My CI machine is a Mac mini I bought used for $350 and dropped an SSD and an extra stick of RAM into All but the vintage 2012 desktop Mac minis have been nuetered in the sense they are not upgradable.

"Neutered" is a weird term. The line is due for a refresh, I think it's got an i7-4578U Haswell in its top-end machine, but that's not "neutered". Yeah, they want you to pay for upgrades themselves and that sucks, but, whatever--my 2012 one has an Ivy Bridge i7 in it and it is still plenty fast for build tasks in my (fairly price-conscious) environment. If I needed a beefier machine, I would be making much more money…

I'm guessing they mean the lack of memory slots in the current model.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#160

Post by notriddle » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 6:21 PM UTC

Heliosmaster wrote: post #146

scarface74 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of this is the fault of the Electron runtime and how much is fault of the developers? It's completely the fault of the developer for choosing Electron when there are better tools available.

What would you use? (honest question)

Qt?