The Linux desktop finally succeeded even though nobody is running Linux on their desktops. Hooray indirect wins!
40 million Chromebooks will be shipped in 2021!
The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)
51–60 of 256 posts
Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Electron’s user experience is atrocious even on recent hardware. It falls right into the uncanny valley of superficially appearing native and while not behaving natively.
VS Code is my fav piece of software of all time, it's an Electron app
Agreed it’s an excellent editor however it has a lot of engineering resources behind it and still suffers from sluggish performance, especially on startup.
Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)
#53There’s nothing wrong with the industry wanting to switch to layout engines for desktop applications. The problem is that this type of runtime environment is still fairly new. Desktop OS’s should have HTML/JS runtime built into the application layer, maybe even deeper. It’s such a dominant user functionality these days. Instead we get a bunch of headless chrome instances. There needs to be an engine that maybe isn’t…
Chrome is not memory-hungry. Webapps are.
I didn’t think of it that way, It’s probably a tug war
Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)
#54Electron apps are still desktop apps. The web however did eat the desktop: everything other the browser and the text editor is now a web app. I have literally 4 apps that I use on my machine: terminal and postman in addition to the above. I am wondering why mobile apps too haven't entirely been replaced by Web apps
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Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)
#55Web still has by far the best developer experience + cross platform stability, not to mention the lowest barrier to entry. I would be really interested to see what happens with Tauri[1] as that looks like a more promising alternative to Electron. I do want to see a return to native apps but there are no worthwhile incentives to do so outside of "our customers demanded a native app." [1] https://tauri.studio/en/
> Web still has by far the best developer experience + cross platform stability, not to mention the lowest barrier to entry. I would be really interested to see what happens with Tauri[1] as that looks like a more promising alternative to Electron.
Compared to what?
C code I wrote in the 90s in middle school still compiles. JS code I wrote two weeks ago probably doesn't because the mountain of dependencies has shifted somewhere.
Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't help that for the major consumer platform (Windows), Microsoft can't make their mind up about how to replace Win32 or WinForms. It seems like every other week there is some new framework announced, so even if you have a need to make a native app, choosing how to do it has become near impossible. Is it .NET Maui? Should I try Electronize? or take a huge punt on Avalonia? It's easier just to wrap up a web ap…
I have seen this indecision as a death knell on a few projects. You really just have to pick something, especially if you stop developing the soon to be deprecated tooling. If it takes you two years to pick a new method, then all your developer community has to sit on their laurels. They can't invest in the old platform, they can't invest in novel tooling of their own, and they can't build with the new thing because…
I honestly feel like this is it for native Windows apps. It's over. GTK+ and Wayland will be more supportable in the future if WSLg gets pushed out far enough.
Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't help that for the major consumer platform (Windows), Microsoft can't make their mind up about how to replace Win32 or WinForms. It seems like every other week there is some new framework announced, so even if you have a need to make a native app, choosing how to do it has become near impossible. Is it .NET Maui? Should I try Electronize? or take a huge punt on Avalonia? It's easier just to wrap up a web ap…
That train left long back; nobody wants a Windows-only app when half the management are using Macs. Unless of course you're taking about pro apps like AutoCad or Photoshop; but they have never been electron and unlikely to ever be.
We have plenty of Windows-only customers. We're still giving them wrapped web apps when they ask for desktop applications.
Because even if the customer is all-Windows, developers sure aren't (unless you're a C#-exclusive sweatshop, maybe?), and stuff like Bootstrap+jQuery is more stable than Windows GUI toolkits these days. Lower development costs and lower ongoing maintenance costs, win-win.
Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)
#58Web still has by far the best developer experience + cross platform stability, not to mention the lowest barrier to entry. I would be really interested to see what happens with Tauri[1] as that looks like a more promising alternative to Electron. I do want to see a return to native apps but there are no worthwhile incentives to do so outside of "our customers demanded a native app." [1] https://tauri.studio/en/
> I do want to see a return to native apps but there are no worthwhile incentives to do so outside of "our customers demanded a native app." Every native app I have ever used has been many times snappier than its Electron/Web equivalent. Think on why customers demand native apps.
We’re not demanding native apps at all. We’re demanding apps that work on our system of choice and get regular updates.
If Electron is what it takes then I’ll use an Electron app and not care.
Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't help that for the major consumer platform (Windows), Microsoft can't make their mind up about how to replace Win32 or WinForms. It seems like every other week there is some new framework announced, so even if you have a need to make a native app, choosing how to do it has become near impossible. Is it .NET Maui? Should I try Electronize? or take a huge punt on Avalonia? It's easier just to wrap up a web ap…
Ha, and on the mac side we now have AppKit, SwiftUI and Catalyst and any combination of those you feel like.
The big difference is that all three of them are still fully supported, and continue to receive updates.
On Windows, 90% of UI toolkits are deprecated with no support, no bug fixes, nor migration guides.
Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)
#60Honestly I can't fathom the same company that made vs code which is really snappy for an electron app made Teams. It's almost like the best electron app vs the worst electron app.