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Electron 11.0 released with support for Apple Silicon

electronjs.org

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Re: Electron 11.0 released with support for Apple Silicon

#151

Post by croes »

TameAntelope wrote: post #107
mrzool wrote: post #27

Mostly I would just want Electron to disappear overnight.

I'm both sad and confused about why there are so many negative comments about Electron, when I happily use Electron apps every day of my life and have no complaints at all about them. In fact, I'd like to start building Electron apps of my own, it actually looks like a ton of fun! What is the experience I'm missing?

Compare an electron app to a well written desktop app There is a difference in responsiveness. And installing a new browser instance for every app is a waste of disk space.

Re: Electron 11.0 released with support for Apple Silicon

#152

Post by divbzero »

jamil7 wrote: post #112
shp0ngle wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to use the JIRA "Catalyst" app (what is JIRA app in the Mac App store) and... it's bad. It's fast, much faster than the web version. But otherwise pretty bad. I kept being frustrated with it too much and switched back to web. And Catalyst is supposed to be "more native" than iOS apps running on macOS directly...

I think Catalyst is basically positioned as a stopgap for iOS developers to get something running on macOS, you can optimise it from there and later split out some code for a specific macOS target.

There is also an additional challenge for apps like Jira or GitHub where the iOS app lags behind the web app in functionality.

Re: Electron 11.0 released with support for Apple Silicon

#153

Post by coldtea »

johnisgood wrote: post #72
qz2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I installed windows NT in a virtual machine for kicks a few months back. Then installed office 97 on it. If you do that and open slack immediately afterwards it feels painful instantly. The difference in how it feels is quite scary.

Partly we can thank this to the "throw more hardware at it" mentality and "lowering the barrier to entry" where noobs create the stuff a lot of us use. People can say all they want that it is good to lower the barrier entry, but that comes with a price. The price that others have to pay when we use their crapware. As long as it is not mandatory though, it is fine, but when it becomes mandatory, it becomes an issue.

>Partly we can thank this to the "throw more hardware at it" mentality and "lowering the barrier to entry" where noobs create the stuff a lot of us use.

What people don't understand is that it's not a "mentality", it's an economic imperative.

It makes sense, business wise, to "throw more hardware at it", and "lowering the barrier to entry" obviously also means that somebody can develop something with lower costs/faster time to market.

It's not a question of spoiled devs.

It's a question of savvy business people.

People not understanding this don't understand how economics works.

Re: Electron 11.0 released with support for Apple Silicon

#154

Post by john_alan »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #111
Jare wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only the issue was limited to Electron... I often feel like Electron is more a declaration of defeat, like: hey no matter where you look at, software bloat keeps eating the precious advances in power provided by hardware. So let's at least get some comfort and value out of that. (Electron does put multiplatform desktop development within reach of 100x more developers than Qt/etc)

As someone who switches between Windows and macOS, I'd rather every app I use be Electron and available on both OS than native and only available on one. Native does basically nothing for me that matters when it comes to accomplishing things. Just OS lock-in. Loading a little faster or being a little snappier is a small consolation.

Wel native is important for me.

Some people don’t care about coffee, caffeine and brown slop is good enough.

Some people do care. I feel the difference in native and it’s worth it for apps you spend lots of time in.

Electron and Qt are not in the same league.

Re: Electron 11.0 released with support for Apple Silicon

#155

Post by my123 »

tasogare wrote: post #29
alwayssmh wrote: post #7

i don't recall such support when msft was launching arm based laptops. does anyone have insight to why this is so? is it a case of apple developer relations doing an outstanding job engaging with the community?

The ARM machines launched by MS were (1) lacking in power and (2) tied to the Windows Store as a distribution mechanism. Issue 1 is not affected M1 machine, in fact they’re blowing current machine, which is in itself a reason for adopting. On issue 2, well the Windows App store has never been an attractive platform. MS tried multiple times to shove it down users throat, which build some antagonism. Moreover, it’s act…

64-bit Arm Windows devices are not tied to the Microsoft Store. Secure Boot can be turned off too.

Re: Electron 11.0 released with support for Apple Silicon

#156

Post by flohofwoe »

FlyingSnake wrote: post #84
andy_ppp wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hang on, I use Visual Studio Code daily and it’s really fast? Certainly compared to XCode or Jet Brains IDEs.

Apples to oranges comparison. VS Code is a text editor whereas Xcode and Jetbrains are IDEs. The real comparison should be with Sublime Text vs VS Code. Sublime Text blows VSCode out of water while opening the same project folder. Here's a naive comparison ~/workspace/iOS Project(develop) time subl . ________________________________________________________ Executed in 75.46 millis fish external usr time 21.45 millis…

It's not really and apples to oranges comparison.

With the C/C++ and CMake Tools extensions installed, VSCode is an IDE that provides pretty much the same features as Xcode (for some features Xcode is ahead, and for others VSCode).

XCode needs about 12 seconds to start into a C/C++ project (on my mid-2014 13"MBP), while VSCode needs 3 (and yes I start into both fairly frequently from the command line). When actually working in the IDEs, for some things XCode feels slicker, for others VSCode. All in all, XCode really isn't a good argument in the whole "Electron vs Native debate" (and the same is true for VSCode vs Visual Studio btw).

Re: Electron 11.0 released with support for Apple Silicon

#157

Post by vkoskiv »

tbrock wrote: post #74
maxpert wrote: post #31

I am really curious why the response to Apple Silicon is so prompt vs when Microsoft did WinRT or ARM versions nobody really cared. What is the difference? Was there some problem in compilation tool-chain or what?

No effort to make existing apps work on Microsoft’s part, and when done was virtualization and not translation. The translation of x86_64 to aarch64 is key to making this work well.

And so far benchmarks show that Apple nailed this translation component.

Re: Electron 11.0 released with support for Apple Silicon

#158

Post by anoncake »

cannedslime wrote: post #97
johnisgood wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Partly we can thank this to the "throw more hardware at it" mentality and "lowering the barrier to entry" where noobs create the stuff a lot of us use. People can say all they want that it is good to lower the barrier entry, but that comes with a price. The price that others have to pay when we use their crapware. As long as it is not mandatory though, it is fine, but when it becomes mandatory, it becomes an issue.

Its your choice to use others "crapware". The price it comes with is all the abuse "noobs" have to take for offering their solutions for free. You don't like HTML frontends, thats sweet, then make your own alternative with Qt or winforms. There is NO "mandatory" electron apps... But there is some great software made with electron that has become very popular. I am confident if something has been made with electron, t…

> I am confident if something has been made with electron, there is native alternatives out there. Don't like slack? Then use IRC.

That only works if you can control what others use (maybe not in the case of Slack, but that's the exception as messengers go).

Re: Electron 11.0 released with support for Apple Silicon

#159

Post by anoncake »

pantulis wrote: post #139
Jare wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only the issue was limited to Electron... I often feel like Electron is more a declaration of defeat, like: hey no matter where you look at, software bloat keeps eating the precious advances in power provided by hardware. So let's at least get some comfort and value out of that. (Electron does put multiplatform desktop development within reach of 100x more developers than Qt/etc)

" (Electron does put multiplatform desktop development within reach of 100x more developers than Qt/etc)" This! The old joke of Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping for Emacs is not relevant today any more. Same will happen with Electron, developer productivity will trump anything.

Hardware improves a lot more slowly than it used to be.

Re: Electron 11.0 released with support for Apple Silicon

#160

Post by rochak »

jmnicolas wrote: post #53
maxpert wrote: post #31

I am really curious why the response to Apple Silicon is so prompt vs when Microsoft did WinRT or ARM versions nobody really cared. What is the difference? Was there some problem in compilation tool-chain or what?

Because MS always do half the job and call it done (I'm a C# dev btw). Take Windows for IOT for example: if you read the presentation and the articles you would think it's a viable solution. I tried to develop a really simple app on it for work. The thing was so slow that I couldn't even make some scrollable text without lag! The same raspberry with Linux is perfectly fine. If you really want to "understand" Microsof…

Man, what is it with Microsoft and acronyms?
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