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Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

blog.acolyer.org

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Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#71

Post by ricg »

"It should support data access for all time." - This is key for me after I had to convert my notes more than once between formats after the original app(s) went into extinction (beloved Circus Ponies Notebook).

That's why I'm designing any new apps around a file format that can be accessed even without the app.

I have a "local-first" Kanban/Trello-style app, "Boards" (http://kitestack.com/boards/), that uses zipped HTML files (to support rich text with images). No collaboration and cross-device support just yet, but it works without a network and saves everything locally.

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#72

Post by thu2111 »

vpEfljFL wrote: post #59
jdnenej wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a fair comparison since most of the memory usage is just loading the app in to memory and then everyone is sharing the same app already loaded. Web apps don't have to be nearly as slow as they are. It's just that it's easier to make a slow app than a fast one. Also desktop apps are becoming super slow and bloated now thanks to electron.

> Also desktop apps are becoming super slow and bloated now thanks to electron. I can't quite get this point. From my perspective software engineers love/adore electron applications. Look at VScode as the example: - electron based javascript application - telemetry included - proprietary build with "open core" It is literally the most popular code editor right now (p.s. I don't use it). Why as a tech savvy user you w…

Obvious answer: it's the only IDE-like thing that's both well supported and caters to the huge population of JavaScript-only developers, who generally don't want to use IntelliJ or similar products because they can't customise it using only web-stack skills.

That is, if JetBrains had made JS plugins first class citizens of their products, possibly VS Code wouldn't be as popular as it is.

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#73

Post by geolgau »

jmathai wrote: post #12

I've been trying to document my "local-first" approach to managing photos. I've made it a ways through but am not sure when I'll finish. Posting here since it is relevant. A Pragmatic Photo Archiving Solution: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JzqT-DJFlS2e8ZC00HrsQITq... It's the culmination of software I've written [1] + a workflow that's resulted from it [2, 3, 4, 5]. [1] Elodie - https://github.com/jmathai/elodi…

This looks great and feels a lot like beets [1] for music, only that they use a database. I'll try it when I have the time to re-organize ~20 years of photos.

[1] http://beets.io/

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#74

Post by [deleted] »

thu2111 wrote: post #72
vpEfljFL wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also desktop apps are becoming super slow and bloated now thanks to electron. I can't quite get this point. From my perspective software engineers love/adore electron applications. Look at VScode as the example: - electron based javascript application - telemetry included - proprietary build with "open core" It is literally the most popular code editor right now (p.s. I don't use it). Why as a tech savvy user you w…

Obvious answer: it's the only IDE-like thing that's both well supported and caters to the huge population of JavaScript-only developers, who generally don't want to use IntelliJ or similar products because they can't customise it using only web-stack skills. That is, if JetBrains had made JS plugins first class citizens of their products, possibly VS Code wouldn't be as popular as it is.

[deleted]

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#75

Post by juststeve »

gdfasfklshg4 wrote: post #65
jwr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I fully agree with your selection criteria, please consider the other side of the equation, because engineering (and the world) is all about compromises. I am the author of a SaaS app ( https://partsbox.io/ ). I export in open formats (JSON), there is no lock-in, it's easy to get all of your data at any time. But the app is online and will remain so. Why? Economics. Maintaining a self-hosted solution is an enor…

Worth a thought. How does desktop software achieve backwards compatibility? For example Libreoffice can work with arbitrary datastores from the 1990's. Meanwhile with modern web based software we struggle to maintain compatibility within a single datastore.

Libre Office is underrated.

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#76

Post by longnow »

I've been following a local-first methodology without realising it for an app that I've been developing. It's a workout-tracking app called harder better faster fitter. It's designed for mobile use in the gym.

https://harderbetterfasterfitter.com/

At the moment the app is a local only service and there aren't any backups. Next year I plan to add a backend. I'll be keeping some of the ideas in this article in mind. Currently I'm using the browser's local storage api to store data locally. It mostly works, but will be bolstered significantly with a cloud backup.

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#77

Post by [deleted] »

jdnenej wrote: post #42
milansuk wrote: post #36

>It should be fast. We don’t want to make round-trips to a server to interact with the application. The cloud apps are not slow only because of moving data, but there is also a problem that an average server is fast(16cores CPU + 64GB RAM), but If it's used by let's say 100users, It means one user has only 0.16core + 0.64GB memory. So an average laptop(4cores/4GB) or phone(4cores/1GB) is way faster. Basically people…

That's not a fair comparison since most of the memory usage is just loading the app in to memory and then everyone is sharing the same app already loaded. Web apps don't have to be nearly as slow as they are. It's just that it's easier to make a slow app than a fast one. Also desktop apps are becoming super slow and bloated now thanks to electron.

[deleted]

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#79

Post by RustyBucket »

jwr wrote: post #58
rgun wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best part is that many people think that an on-premises version should be less expensive than the online version, and come without a subscription. Which makes sense IMHO, provided they are not expecting any updates to their on-prem installation. It can just be a fork of your current codebase with no new features or warranty. Maybe you can include some terms for critical security updates but that is about it.

But that, unfortunately, is entirely unrealistic. When I discover critical bugs, I can't leave users out in the cold. I believe that the whole concept of "software without support" is fundamentally flawed.

I think we as engineers owe our users bug fixes, because we messed up at some point. However new functionality or email/phone support? Well, this is what people are not entitled for.
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