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When a rewrite isn’t: rebuilding Slack on the desktop

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Re: When a rewrite isn’t: rebuilding Slack on the desktop

#141

Post by djsumdog »

So big re-engineering rewrite .. and they're still going with electron? I mean, I guess it's good they're getting memory usage down for multiple teams, but other than that, it still seems like a bad start.

I realize native apps on the three big platforms is difficult, but they're not using any native components what-so-ever. It's their web interface in a window. They could have used existing toolkits like QT, Gtk or something else, themed them to look like the Slack we're familiar with, and ditched the electron bloat.

I've tried to write a couple of prototypes in electron and have worked on some electron projects and I just don't see why people are flocking to it. Every tutorial is based around huge amounts of boilerplate or scaffolding, and unit testing always seems to require weird freaky hacks with modules.

I mean I guess if it works for them, good on them, but I'm still not going to take this as a sign to recommend or try new projects in Electron.

Re: When a rewrite isn’t: rebuilding Slack on the desktop

#142

Post by Eric_WVGG »

_bxg1 wrote: post #62
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, I'm a React Native developer. I'm just saying that "native client" doesn't necessarily mean separate Mac, Windows and Linux ports; furthermore, for a billion dollar company, a native client of _some_ kind isn't an unrealistic demand.

That's fair; although I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be able to have such a consistent and unique look-and-feel with React Native (you can correct me if I'm wrong). It's debatable whether that's a good tradeoff, but it's totally one that some people would make.

well, consistent with what? If you mean the native Mac/Windows/Linux desktop experience, yes, it's definitely impractical to do that with any size budget. But the current Electron app isn't either. But if you want consistency with the web app, I don't see anything difficult about that.

I do wonder if the plugin/extensibility architecture — "Slack Apps" like Github and IMGUR and OpenTable — is the real answer. (Unless I'm mistake and these run on the native mobile apps.)

Re: When a rewrite isn’t: rebuilding Slack on the desktop

#143

Post by api_or_ipa »

wootie512 wrote: post #131
acemarke wrote: post #67

I know that popular opinion in the Twitterverse is that "Redux is dead", but I note that both Twitter and Slack just released major rewrites that use Redux heavily. I talked about Redux usage stats and comparison with other alternatives in my "State of Redux" talk at Reactathon earlier this year [0], and my post "Redux - Not Dead Yet!" also addresses some of these aspects [1]. Also, quick plug for our current focus.…

What is the goto for web if Redux is dead? I am not super knowledgeable about all the exact architectures, but I thought mobile was just starting to adopt the redux architecture vs MVP, MVVM, etc

A lot of people are saying that the new-but-not-really-new React Context API and useReducer hooks are sufficient to cover redux. My team isn't convinced, we see immense value because we're big fans of using Redux Saga-- a model that isn't well covered using Context or hooks, although we do use those APIs as well when needed.

Re: When a rewrite isn’t: rebuilding Slack on the desktop

#144

Post by hello_moto »

razemio wrote: post #113
mcguire wrote: post #103

" Conventional wisdom holds that you should never rewrite your code from scratch, and that’s good advice. " Speaking as someone who has done a fair number of rewrites as well as watching rewrites fail, conventional wisdom is somewhat wrong. 1. Do a rewrite. Don't try to add features, just replace the existing functionality. Avoid a moving target. 2. Rewrite the same project. Don't redesign the database schema at the…

Thank you! I read the first sentence and had to speak "bullshit" out loud. Sometimes rewriting something feels so good. Especially after some time has past and you are still in the process of learning. You apply all the things you have learned and your are amazed how much better it has become.

Depends on the size of the re-write. If it's small, no problem. If it's big, it's a death-march for result-driven developer => because at the end of the re-write, the product is still more or less the same, just different engine.

Some developers prefer to leave the company during the re-write (which usually happens after 3 years exciting hyper-growth).

Re: When a rewrite isn’t: rebuilding Slack on the desktop

#145

Post by msbarnett »

somethingnot wrote: post #140
msbarnett wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in this metaphor, in terms of features, performance, and sheer quality of experience, a Rolls Royce would be something like LimeChat, and Slack is a Ford Pinto

Truly spoken as a programmer, whose ultimate chat experience is text in a terminal. Why would anyone want GIFs or images in their chat app? Crazy people...

Truly spoken like someone who isn’t aware that most IRC clients, including LimeChat, will happily display images, including gifs, but for some reason feels confident and qualified enough in their uninformed opinion to be belligerent about it on the internet.

Re: When a rewrite isn’t: rebuilding Slack on the desktop

#147

Post by AdamJacobMuller »

me551ah wrote: post #20

For me the gold standard of Chat applications is always going to be mIRC. It supports a ton of plugins, consumes 10-50mb of memory and little to no CPU. You could be connected to multiple servers and channels with DCC scripts running and you still wouldn't notice that it's even running. Even though Slack is using react now, they are still using electron under the hood. Which means it can never match the snappiness of…

It's more than 15 years since I used mIRC and I still romanticize it and haven't found anything I like more to replace it. mIRC scripting was some of the first programming I did.

Re: When a rewrite isn’t: rebuilding Slack on the desktop

#149

Post by AdamJacobMuller »

ausjke wrote: post #41
me551ah wrote: post #20

For me the gold standard of Chat applications is always going to be mIRC. It supports a ton of plugins, consumes 10-50mb of memory and little to no CPU. You could be connected to multiple servers and channels with DCC scripts running and you still wouldn't notice that it's even running. Even though Slack is using react now, they are still using electron under the hood. Which means it can never match the snappiness of…

mirc is windows only? there are many web-based irc these days and they worked well

Can you find me a web-based IRC client which runs in <100MB of memory?

Re: When a rewrite isn’t: rebuilding Slack on the desktop

#150

Post by ergothus »

mcguire wrote: post #103

" Conventional wisdom holds that you should never rewrite your code from scratch, and that’s good advice. " Speaking as someone who has done a fair number of rewrites as well as watching rewrites fail, conventional wisdom is somewhat wrong. 1. Do a rewrite. Don't try to add features, just replace the existing functionality. Avoid a moving target. 2. Rewrite the same project. Don't redesign the database schema at the…

Incremental rewrites (aka refactoring) is best, but sometimes that's just not viable, which is where I feel conventional wisdom breaks down.

If your code is trying to get updated, you can usually refactor. If your code is having a paradigm shift, it's likely any incremental rewrite will take more time and have more duplication without benefit for far too long to be successful.

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