Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Make Apps for Linux

makealinux.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 422 posts

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#151

Post by FirmwareBurner »

zer0zzz wrote: post #150
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold on mate, isn't that what Java was supposed to solve. I remember before the days of electron when I was a wee lad in the 2000s, all cross platforms apps were Java. Look at Ghidra, it's a Java app for Windows, Linux and Mac. The "holy trinity" of operating systems, covered with one language and framework. So what happened? Did devs forgot Java exists and felt like reinventing the wheel but worse this time?

Java is objectively terrible for writing good apps on modern personal computers. The one platform that did adopt it (android) had to practically rework the entire byte code and VM as well as the set of APIs for writing apps to make it work.

Why is it terrible? Asking for real.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#152

Post by pjmlp »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #138
pjmlp wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a REPL, not a CLI.

A shell is a REPL. Though I do I agree there's something to using one with good features (ex. I would completely understand someone using exclusively zsh just for the better tab-completion).

A traditional UNIX shell is more of a poor man's REPL, hence the difference in wording.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#153

Post by pjmlp »

zer0zzz wrote: post #106
pjmlp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That core would be GNOME or KDE frameworks, coupled with the FreeDesktop standards, at least that was the plan about 20 years ago. However as the site says doing distributions is what most folks keep doing, and naturally there isn't a single stack that can keep up with snowflake distributions. In the end, Google took the Linux kernel, placed two core set of frameworks, one in Java, and the other in JavaScript, and na…

None of that core is standardized across even a hand full of distros.

Naturally, you missed the part I mentioned it was the plan 20 years ago, not how it looks like today.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#154

Post by rubymamis »

vcg3rd wrote: post #141
rubymamis wrote: post #20

The problem is OSS software not even trying to compete with the market. People using OSS software taking it for granted that the UX is going to be subpar, and it really is. Regular propriety software faces the risk of their users not paying, therefore adapting to make end user experience great. OSS usually doesn't have that risk. Open source needs to be exposed to risk from end users. I tried to change that with Note…

I understand your frustration, but I have a couple of counter-examples, and I don't offer them in any derogatory way. 1) Notes looks a lot like Standard Notes. If you built Notes using copy-left, OSS it's hard to complain unless you pay "royalties" to all the programmers whose work was incorporated into yours. 2) I am probably atypical. I have used Linux for over 20 years, but I can't write so much as a Bash script o…

There are some amazing people that valued what I'm doing. One person even donated $1000 years ago. But that doesn't make it sustainable.

I think it's time for me to compete on the market. I believe Plume is going to be a good addition to the pool of productivity apps today, but I'll let people judge that when it's released. I hope you will sign up to get an update[2] and let me know what you think of it when it is released.

BTW, are you suggesting I copied Standard Notes? Not really, I don't like their design. Notes is in active development since 2014 (first commit on GitHub in 2015), back then I didn't even know about Standard Notes and the core design barely changed.

[1] https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes/releases/tag/v0.8.0-bet...

[2] https://www.get-plume.com/

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#155

Post by pjmlp »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #140
pjmlp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider a container, shipping the developer's computer into production, or the revenge of microkernels, take your pick.

I mean, kind of? But "shipping the developer's computer into production" implies a lot of things that really shouldn't be happening even with containers - the images you ship in prod should always come from git (or such) by way of CI, and shouldn't include ex. compilers. So I'd argue we managed to mostly get the upsides of just shipping the dev's machine but without the downsides.

There are plenty of blog posts about how containers work in Linux is still dependent on external resources, unless care was taken when creating those images.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#156

Post by LeoNatan25 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #151
zer0zzz wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java is objectively terrible for writing good apps on modern personal computers. The one platform that did adopt it (android) had to practically rework the entire byte code and VM as well as the set of APIs for writing apps to make it work.

Why is it terrible? Asking for real.

Because it’s not “sexy” anymore. Now “sexiness” lies with web crap, so Electron is a “great tool”, while Java is “terrible”.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#157

Post by smoldesu »

zer0zzz wrote: post #147
smoldesu wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a large enough timescale I don't think you can reasonably expect this on any of this big 3 OSes. From a less macro perspective, I think tools like Appimage and Flatpak will fill that role.

On a long enough time scale we are all dead, and Linux doesn't exist. That doesn't mean that in the decades that computer software has to be useful to actual people that things have to suck this badly right now.

The "actual people" using Linux on the desktop are not running .so files off the internet. I get what you're saying, but you know it's facetious to pretend that packaging is simple on Mac and Windows too.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#158

Post by creesch »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #145
chefandy wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like to shit on tools like Electron, but there's a reason they're popular. If you need to reach a broad audience with a native tool, using heavy-handed web-based plumbing is a bigger win for Linux users than supporting only windows and macos where like 97% of desktop users are.

Hold on mate, isn't that what Java was supposed to solve. I remember before the days of electron when I was a wee lad in the 2000s, all cross platforms apps were Java. Look at Ghidra, it's a Java app for Windows, Linux and Mac. The "holy trinity" of operating systems, covered with one language and framework. So what happened? Did devs forgot Java exists and felt like reinventing the wheel but worse this time?

Java simply has a much higher barrier of entry. Not only in regards to figuring out the language and resources available but also the fact that creating a GUI still requires external dependencies.

Electron isn't just cross platform, it is cross platform based on technologies (html, css and javascript) that also by a huge margin have the largest amount of developers available.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#159

Post by rubymamis »

bachmeier wrote: post #75
rubymamis wrote: post #20

The problem is OSS software not even trying to compete with the market. People using OSS software taking it for granted that the UX is going to be subpar, and it really is. Regular propriety software faces the risk of their users not paying, therefore adapting to make end user experience great. OSS usually doesn't have that risk. Open source needs to be exposed to risk from end users. I tried to change that with Note…

A few thoughts: 1. I've never heard of your app, and I follow this space closely. It's extremely competitive. 2. I clicked to check how much you're asking for premium. It's reasonable on an annual basis, but I only saw an option for a monthly subscription. That's not happening. 3. I'd be more likely to give you a donation than to pay for a premium version for an app like this. That model has worked well for Obsidian.…

Hi! Thanks for your comment.

> but I only saw an option for a monthly subscription.

What do you mean? The annual subscription doesn't work? Or something else?

> I'd be more likely to give you a donation than to pay for a premium version for an app like this.

Well, for my Notes app, I can understand. Hopefully you will find my new app as a breath of fresh air in this space. Sign up to get an update please! I would love to hear what you think when the app is out.

> My observation is that a closed core product with a large open source ecosystem around it gives folks a reason to pay.

Overall, I think people will pay if an app gives them enough value.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#160

Post by api »

smoldesu wrote: post #157
zer0zzz wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a long enough time scale we are all dead, and Linux doesn't exist. That doesn't mean that in the decades that computer software has to be useful to actual people that things have to suck this badly right now.

The "actual people" using Linux on the desktop are not running .so files off the internet. I get what you're saying, but you know it's facetious to pretend that packaging is simple on Mac and Windows too.

Packaging is fairly simple on Mac and Windows if you use the dev tools for the platform and are not doing things like installing services or drivers or changing OS configuration.

Your packaged app will almost always work too. There are not 50 distributions of these OSes.

Post reply on HN