Live data from Hacker News

Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

josephg.com

141–150 of 1001 posts

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#141

Here's the thing. You know what the alternative to all of these Electron apps coming out is? If your answer is "A native Cocoa/WPF app", you are on another planet, the answer is, "It wouldn't exist at all". Nobody in the last 5-10 years cared about writing Desktop apps before Electron came along, there's basically zero money in it, and it's massively expensive, both in terms of actual dev time per feature (easily 10x…

That's nonsense . Desktop apps have been frequently released since forever. The underlying issue here is that Electron reduces the barrier to entry for cross-platform development . That is, it's cheaper to build a single cross-platform application in Electron than it is to build two or three native applications, and you can re-use your existing web experience. I can completely understand why companies might choose th…

Bingo--half these diatribes against Electron just seem to be making the case for premature optimization.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense . Desktop apps have been frequently released since forever. The underlying issue here is that Electron reduces the barrier to entry for cross-platform development . That is, it's cheaper to build a single cross-platform application in Electron than it is to build two or three native applications, and you can re-use your existing web experience. I can completely understand why companies might choose th…

> The underlying issue here is that Electron reduces the barrier to entry for cross-platform development. It's very far-fetched to call a lower barrier to entry an issue. The easier we can make it for people to get started, the better, isn't it?

"the easier we can make it for electricians to wire up my house, the better, isn't it?"

Unfortunately, no. Just as a trained electrician will wire up your house so as to not set it on fire as soon as you turn on a lamp, a trained developer will make apps that use a minimal amount of resources.

Especially more hilarious if someone writing Electron apps call him/herself an engineer.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#144

Here's the thing. You know what the alternative to all of these Electron apps coming out is? If your answer is "A native Cocoa/WPF app", you are on another planet, the answer is, "It wouldn't exist at all". Nobody in the last 5-10 years cared about writing Desktop apps before Electron came along, there's basically zero money in it, and it's massively expensive, both in terms of actual dev time per feature (easily 10x…

Bullshit. Spotify, for example, existed before Electron, and it was very fast. Text editors existed before Electron, and they didn't require 300 MB minimum to run. Same with collaborative chat programs.

Electron is just a way to reuse web developers for desktop development - I.e. a way companies now have to cut development costs.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#145

Here's the thing. You know what the alternative to all of these Electron apps coming out is? If your answer is "A native Cocoa/WPF app", you are on another planet, the answer is, "It wouldn't exist at all". Nobody in the last 5-10 years cared about writing Desktop apps before Electron came along, there's basically zero money in it, and it's massively expensive, both in terms of actual dev time per feature (easily 10x…

That's nonsense . Desktop apps have been frequently released since forever. The underlying issue here is that Electron reduces the barrier to entry for cross-platform development . That is, it's cheaper to build a single cross-platform application in Electron than it is to build two or three native applications, and you can re-use your existing web experience. I can completely understand why companies might choose th…

The cost argument is indeed a moot point - look at all of the major software companies, and you'll see that actual development is nowhere near their primary expense. They can afford to implement their own programming languages and OSes (and some do), but apparently it's too expensive or too difficult to make native apps for the respective platforms?

This goes for mobile too.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#146
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense . Desktop apps have been frequently released since forever. The underlying issue here is that Electron reduces the barrier to entry for cross-platform development . That is, it's cheaper to build a single cross-platform application in Electron than it is to build two or three native applications, and you can re-use your existing web experience. I can completely understand why companies might choose th…

What you call "trade-offs" appears to me to be developers externalizing their costs onto users. There are costs to developing desktop applications and developers don't want to pay them, so they make users pay for them in wasted hardware dollars, bandwidth, RAM, battery life, and poor integration.

Yes. You just described modern computing.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#148
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense . Desktop apps have been frequently released since forever. The underlying issue here is that Electron reduces the barrier to entry for cross-platform development . That is, it's cheaper to build a single cross-platform application in Electron than it is to build two or three native applications, and you can re-use your existing web experience. I can completely understand why companies might choose th…

What you call "trade-offs" appears to me to be developers externalizing their costs onto users. There are costs to developing desktop applications and developers don't want to pay them, so they make users pay for them in wasted hardware dollars, bandwidth, RAM, battery life, and poor integration.

Everything in the world of web-stack development has turned externalizing costs onto users as a core first principle.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#149
post #117

Here's the thing. You know what the alternative to all of these Electron apps coming out is? If your answer is "A native Cocoa/WPF app", you are on another planet, the answer is, "It wouldn't exist at all". Nobody in the last 5-10 years cared about writing Desktop apps before Electron came along, there's basically zero money in it, and it's massively expensive, both in terms of actual dev time per feature (easily 10x…

> Nobody cared about writing Desktop apps before Electron came along, there's basically zero money in it Wut? So the whole Mac App Store, MS Office Suite, Adobe's apps, many other stuff were just a dream? Until Electron desktop was dead? You're bending facts here, and I hope that's because you don't know much about the stuff you're talking about. Desktop is big, just that other things have grown bigger. That doesn't…

I guess he meant Indie developers. I am one. I didn't care, but do now.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#150
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense . Desktop apps have been frequently released since forever. The underlying issue here is that Electron reduces the barrier to entry for cross-platform development . That is, it's cheaper to build a single cross-platform application in Electron than it is to build two or three native applications, and you can re-use your existing web experience. I can completely understand why companies might choose th…

What you call "trade-offs" appears to me to be developers externalizing their costs onto users. There are costs to developing desktop applications and developers don't want to pay them, so they make users pay for them in wasted hardware dollars, bandwidth, RAM, battery life, and poor integration.

Well users/clients/bosses want everything, now, and for free so...
Post reply on HN