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Is the madness ever going to end?

unixsheikh.com

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Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#361

Post by [deleted] »

rahimiali wrote: post #356
aemreunal wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These aren't engineering decisions, they're business decisions All engineering (including "real" ones like civil or mechanical) is about fitting your requirements within budgets. When one's building a skyscraper, you try to build it in a way that minimizes the cost while satisfying all requirements (it shouldn't fall down given such and such conditions, etc.) Engineering is largely the art of solving problems that…

Ok. What is the art of building things that are good, but violate some constraints of the real world? I’d like to use the products from that discipline.

[deleted]

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#362

Post by emodendroket »

stemlord wrote: post #276
rdiddly wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's what's offensive to the purist engineer mind. These aren't engineering decisions, they're business decisions (or maybe the closest thing you could call them would be "financial engineering" decisions). The best thing, by pure engineering criteria, is not what gets built. The best thing for the business is what gets built. In that context it's a complaint as old as the hills. ...and not specific to comp…

Well it's a net negative for the end user, which should have been the priority for everyone involved, and what you're describing sounds like a corruption of this system. So I wouldn't call it an engineering thing, it seems far more general than that.

I don't consider it a "net negative" that I can use a bunch of stuff on every device I own rather than just one or two. And frankly, if you happened to be involved in the sysadmin world during the long, slow death of Windows XP, you might even appreciate the benefits of Web apps even from the technical standpoint.

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#363

Post by emodendroket »

n8cpdx wrote: post #75
Waterluvian wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m very critical when a company like Slack cannot find the time and resources to make native clients. I’m so #%^*ing tired of it taking three Mississippis to show a channel I click on. But on the whole, I don’t think the armchair critics truly appreciate how Electron reduces the cost by at least an order of magnitude. It’s a brilliant tool for shipping early and fast. My only criticism with these start-up use cases…

I can’t think of any reason not to use Slack exclusively as a website. I’ve been doing it for years now, and it’s a better experience IMO. For Teams, the only disadvantage is you can’t share your screen and video simultaneously when running as a tab; but I find the screen sharing experience to be better otherwise when running as a browser tab. Also: all of these “shitty” Electron apps work just as well on Linux as th…

I have to use it constantly and it's easy to lose a tab compared to a standalone app, plus notifications. Reason enough for me.

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#364

Post by emodendroket »

Stratoscope wrote: post #282
CitrusFruits wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ii run Slack outside of a tab and in its app format because it's easier to navigate to using keyboard shortcuts and OS level features. That may not be enough for you, but it's plenty reason for me, and I imagine many others.

With Chrome or Edge, you can take any web page and turn it into a standalone "app" that lives in the start menu and can be pinned to the taskbar and Alt-Tabbed to, etc. In the Chrome menu, select More Tools / Create Shortcut... and edit the title and check the Open as Window box. In Edge, select Apps / Install this site as an app. Edge has a lot more options here than Chrome. You can pin it to the Taskbar or Start, c…

I don't understand. What benefit does this have over running the app?

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#365

Post by emodendroket »

petepete wrote: post #106
meetups323 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually they are websites. That's kinda the whole point... Spotify's desktop app is the same as open.spotify.com, Discord's is the same as discord.com, VS Code's is the same as vscode.dev, Slack is the same as.. something. But yeah, instead of those companies all needing 5 separate engineering teams (Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and you're joking if you think they'll make a Linux native app), they just make a web…

I think it's a huge pity that we're so reliant on platforms instead of protocols - there would be native Slack clients for every platform. Few companies even allow proper API access. Spotify buck the trend, Spot is a fantastic app https://github.com/xou816/spot

If those don't go altogether stagnant then usually what happens is there are a bunch of features that only work in the "official" implementation so it's a degraded experience anyway.

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#367

Post by lgessler »

rahimiali wrote: post #356
aemreunal wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These aren't engineering decisions, they're business decisions All engineering (including "real" ones like civil or mechanical) is about fitting your requirements within budgets. When one's building a skyscraper, you try to build it in a way that minimizes the cost while satisfying all requirements (it shouldn't fall down given such and such conditions, etc.) Engineering is largely the art of solving problems that…

Ok. What is the art of building things that are good, but violate some constraints of the real world? I’d like to use the products from that discipline.

Programming in Haskell.

Jokes aside, do you really not understand what GP means? "Real-world constraints" are the things like having to make money or having to do something with only 2 other programmers to help you. Nobody's claiming that, for example, academics (who don't need to have products that money) don't have other problems (like grant writing or juggling academic responsibilities), but that isn't what people mean by "real-world constraints".

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#368

Post by emodendroket »

int_19h wrote: post #319
scotty79 wrote: post #230

I don't understand how can you diss Electron when you see something like VS Code or Atom. The benefits are clear. This software could grow plugin ecosystem vastly exceeding anything that was previously possible even after pouring millions of dollars into it. Electron is better than everything else by various engineering metrics. Just not RAM or CPU usage. And despite large RAM and CPU usage it manages to be way faste…

> I don't understand how can you diss Electron when you see something like VS Code or Atom. Because you also see things like https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/22900

Am I supposed to hate emacs too?

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#369

Post by emodendroket »

crubier wrote: post #346
int_19h wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer, that is correct. As the end user of those "native" web-repackaged apps, the experience is just subpar. Give me back my native widgets and consistent UX.

You can have them back! Just use old versions of your apps, or old apps. But you won’t because deep down you know that those “web repackaged” apps are actually better than old GTK apps. More features, nicer UI, etc.

It depends, probably the "old version" of Spotify or whatever doesn't work anymore.

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#370

Post by biztos »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #316
pc86 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If HN had an equivalent of Reddit Gold, this comment would deserve a couple of them. Engineering without constraints is easy, but it's not engineering.

Engineering without constraints is theory.

Or Product Management?
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