The problem with desktop is the stack isn't stable enough; constant updates and upgrades threaten to break all of your underlying dependencies. Server backend is the most stable stack, and that's one of the real reasons it's used so predominantly.
Are we losing enterprise desktop?
11–20 of 22 posts
Re: Are we losing enterprise desktop?
#12The problem with desktop is the stack isn't stable enough; constant updates and upgrades threaten to break all of your underlying dependencies. Server backend is the most stable stack, and that's one of the real reasons it's used so predominantly.
It's also a real pain to do cross-platform correctly without some abstraction layer like Qt, gtk, Wx, Tk, SDL, OpenGL, Vulkan, or something. Do you really want to write a Metal app, an MVC app, an X app, a Wayland app, and then still be asked to make a web version of it for people on the go? Look at all the work put into Wine and Proton to get Windows games - perhaps the ultimate everyday example of optimized native code - to run on Linux.
There are languages, UI tookits, cross-compiler sets, and RADs that make this easier. Qt, gtk, Wx, Tk, SDL, FLTK, and such happen to be among them. So are Flutter, Delphi (same code and RAD project on Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android), FreePascal/Lazarus (not identical to Delphi but a pretty close F/OSS alternative built around the same language and concepts), Xamarin, React Native, NativeScript, Felgo, Roslyn, GLBasic, BlitzMax, PureBasic, QB64 with Inform, Gecko2D, FireMonkey, JUCE, IMCROSS, Haxe, Webassembly, the JVM, CLR/.net Core/CIL, Scala, C#, F#, Clojure, ClojureCLR, Component Pascal, IronPython, IronScheme, PowerShell, Kotlin, Groovy, jgo, Visual COBOL (yes, really - it targets JVM), JavaScript, Raku, NetRexx, JRuby, Yeti, Fantom, JR, Pizza, and I'm sure many other tools wouldn't even exist if developing single-source applications for multiple platforms was easy with just a C or C++ compiler.
Re: Are we losing enterprise desktop?
#13The healthtech industry, from my experience in Canada, still primarily works on custom Java apps running on desktop. Most of them are trying to switch to the web too, though.
This makes sense to me. Why keep a browser and a JVM up to date and ship your code, keeping it up to date? The alternative is just keep the browser with its JS and WASM VM up to date and trickle your latest code out automatically.
Re: Are we losing enterprise desktop?
#14Ironically there is not a single electron app I ended up using in the long term. For all of them the web version ended up being superior: always up to date, running on a properly secured browser and on which I prevent any external tracking, ads, when I allow or not access to my location, webcam, microphone, etc.
Re: Are we losing enterprise desktop?
#15There are many places that have desktop application development teams but the application(s) are internal only so it doesn't exist to the outside world. I have done desktop development with .NET at a couple companies and have been contacted by recruiters for other jobs for desktop software written in .NET.
Re: Are we losing enterprise desktop?
#16I know some people that work in industrial control (eg nuclear power plant control systems). Obviously their customers don't want to use a SaaS service hosted online. They've always had onsite servers with desktop applications. Even they're moving to web applications. Still hosted on site, but webapps served locally. The issue they had was hiring people who could (or wanted to) build desktop applications. Switching t…
Yes, I have worked at a place like this. SCADA and other controls is like an untouched island compared to any other industry I have worked in. It can be a struggle to get people on board with web applications there.
There’s such a diversity of systems it’s easier to pull data out of the SCADA system and build genetic analytics normally. That’s the approach that’s happened in many industries anyway from what I’m seeing.
Re: Are we losing enterprise desktop?
#17There are many places that have desktop application development teams but the application(s) are internal only so it doesn't exist to the outside world. I have done desktop development with .NET at a couple companies and have been contacted by recruiters for other jobs for desktop software written in .NET.
We have an ancient guy who delivers binaries compiled from pascal for one of our proprietary desktop programs
Re: Are we losing enterprise desktop?
#18The problem with desktop is the stack isn't stable enough; constant updates and upgrades threaten to break all of your underlying dependencies. Server backend is the most stable stack, and that's one of the real reasons it's used so predominantly.
Ah, that cant be right. Maybe for some platforms/stacks, but a windows desktop stack using somewhat standard tools will be backwards compatible for ages.
I have seen several companies using ancient windows apps for day to day work without issues. Personally I still sometimes use a somewhat complex GUI app that I last compiled around 2002-2003 with borland c++ builder without issues.
Re: Are we losing enterprise desktop?
#19The problem with desktop is the stack isn't stable enough; constant updates and upgrades threaten to break all of your underlying dependencies. Server backend is the most stable stack, and that's one of the real reasons it's used so predominantly.
It's also a real pain to do cross-platform correctly without some abstraction layer like Qt, gtk, Wx, Tk, SDL, OpenGL, Vulkan, or something. Do you really want to write a Metal app, an MVC app, an X app, a Wayland app, and then still be asked to make a web version of it for people on the go? Look at all the work put into Wine and Proton to get Windows games - perhaps the ultimate everyday example of optimized native…
100%
Re: Are we losing enterprise desktop?
#20The problem with desktop is the stack isn't stable enough; constant updates and upgrades threaten to break all of your underlying dependencies. Server backend is the most stable stack, and that's one of the real reasons it's used so predominantly.
Ah, that cant be right. Maybe for some platforms/stacks, but a windows desktop stack using somewhat standard tools will be backwards compatible for ages. I have seen several companies using ancient windows apps for day to day work without issues. Personally I still sometimes use a somewhat complex GUI app that I last compiled around 2002-2003 with borland c++ builder without issues.
Really? These don't require any updates to run on Windows 10, etc? If that's true, why are there still industrial and military users running Windows XP?