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I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

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Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#171

Post by mohamedkoubaa »

jstanley wrote: post #97
irishcoffee wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't win. It just survived long enough. The web is a terrible platform. I haven't ever shipped a line of "web code" for money and I plan to keep it that way until I retire. What a miserable way to make a living.

Perhaps you're taking the npm/react/vercel world to be the entire web? I agree that that stuff is a scourge. But you can still just write html and Javascript and serve it from a static site, I wrote an outline in https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/web-programs.html which I frequently link to coding agents when they are going astray.

I wouldn't say that react is what's wrong with the web. I would say that the web is what's wrong with react.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#172

Post by mohamedkoubaa »

criddell wrote: post #110
mohamedkoubaa wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This points to our failure as an industry to design a universal app engine that isn't a browser.

> design a universal app engine You've reminded me of the XKCD comic about standards: https://xkcd.com/927/ Do you really want a universal app engine? If you don't have a good reason for ignoring platform guidelines (as many games do), then don't. The best applications on any platform are the ones that embrace the platform's conventions and quirks. I get why businesses will settle for mediocre, but for personal proje…

Platforms and app engines are orthogonal concerns. I agree that platform guidelines are worth preserving, and the web as a platform solves it by hijacking the rectangle that the native platform yields to it. Any app engine could do the same thing.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#173

Post by cyberax »

jasomill wrote: post #165
d3Xt3r wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For something like Audacity (the audio program), how the heck does it make sense to put that on a website (I'm just giving a random example, I don't think they've actually done this), where you first have to upload your source file (privacy issues), manipulate it in a graphically/widget-limited browser I understand it was just an example, but you'd be surprised how far browsers have come along with technologies lik…

Sure, but taking your video editor example, what advantages does an in-browser app provide over a native application like DaVinci Resolve, other than portability and not needing to install the application, in exchange for reduced performance, a clunkier interface, and reduced integration with the rest of the desktop platform? And if this is such a compelling value proposition for full-featured desktop productivity ap…

> Sure, but taking your video editor example, what advantages does an in-browser app provide over a native application like DaVinci Resolve

It's the issue of friction. Also, good webapps are often _better_ than native apps, as they can support tabs.

> And if this is such a compelling value proposition for full-featured desktop productivity applications, why didn't Java Web Start set the world on fire?

Because it relied on Java and SWING, which were a disaster for desktop apps.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#174

Post by archagon »

fbrchps wrote: post #62
mohamedkoubaa wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This points to our failure as an industry to design a universal app engine that isn't a browser.

Counterpoint: is the web browser not already fulfilling the "universal app engine" need? It can already run on most end user devices where people do most other things. IoT/Edge devices don't count here, but this day most of their data is just being sent back to a server which is accessible via some web interface. Ignoring the fragmentation of course; although that seems to be getting less and less each year (so long…

I think a browser is an inverted universal engine. The underlying tech is solid, but on top of it sits the DOM and scripting, and then apps have to build on top of that mess. In my opinion, it would be much better for web apps and the DOM to be sibling implementations using the same engine, not hierarchically related. You wouldn’t use Excel as a foundation to make software, even though you could.

Maybe useful higher-level elements like layout, typography, etc. could be shared as frameworks.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#175

Post by mohamedkoubaa »

archagon wrote: post #174
fbrchps wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: is the web browser not already fulfilling the "universal app engine" need? It can already run on most end user devices where people do most other things. IoT/Edge devices don't count here, but this day most of their data is just being sent back to a server which is accessible via some web interface. Ignoring the fragmentation of course; although that seems to be getting less and less each year (so long…

I think a browser is an inverted universal engine. The underlying tech is solid, but on top of it sits the DOM and scripting, and then apps have to build on top of that mess. In my opinion, it would be much better for web apps and the DOM to be sibling implementations using the same engine, not hierarchically related. You wouldn’t use Excel as a foundation to make software, even though you could. Maybe useful higher-…

You are thinking along the same lines as me. The fact that the first thing to be standardized was HTML made it a fait accompli that everything had to be built on top of it, since that "guaranteed" cross vendor compatibility.

There are many alternate histories where a different base application layer (app engine) could have been designed for the web (the platform)

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#176

Post by kelnos »

rustcleaner wrote: post #127
ryandrake wrote: post #17

Almost all of Patrick's points are great if your software development goal is to make a buck . They don't seem to matter if you're writing open source, and I'd argue that desktop apps are still relevant and wonderful in the open source world. I just started a new hobby project, and am doing it as a cross-platform, non-Electron, desktop app because that's what I like to develop. The onboarding funnel: Only a concern i…

I generally despise "web tech" as it is today. Browsers are not application platforms!

You should probably accept the fact that browsers are indeed application platforms. I'm not saying they should be, or that they are good at that role, but they absolutely are, at this point in time.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#177

Post by kelnos »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #84
miki123211 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attitudes like these is why non-developers don't want to use open source software. These concerns may not matter to you, the developer, but they absolutely matter to end-users. If your prospective user can't find the setup.exe they just downloaded, they won't be able to use your software. If your conversion and onboarding sucks, they'll get confused and try the commercial offering instead. If you don't gather analyti…

I'm a seasoned developer and I frequently come across OSS projects where I spend half an hour or more in " how the fuck do I actually use this "-land. A lot of developers need to take the mindset of writing the documentation for their non-tech grandma from the ground up.

Or they can just, y'know, not do that. Because they don't owe you, or anyone, anything.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#178

Post by kelnos »

Minor49er wrote: post #47
steve1977 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Google ever have a real Don't be Evil era?

If you need to sloganize a reminder to yourself to not be evil, that's not a promising sign

You have to understand the time period. Microsoft was huge and had won the browser wars, and had become a convicted monopolist.

Google's "don't be evil" was a way for them to say "we're regular Joes, just like you; we're not Microsoft, and we're not going to do bad stuff like they do".

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#179

Post by kalleboo »

cyberax wrote: post #173
jasomill wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but taking your video editor example, what advantages does an in-browser app provide over a native application like DaVinci Resolve, other than portability and not needing to install the application, in exchange for reduced performance, a clunkier interface, and reduced integration with the rest of the desktop platform? And if this is such a compelling value proposition for full-featured desktop productivity ap…

> Sure, but taking your video editor example, what advantages does an in-browser app provide over a native application like DaVinci Resolve It's the issue of friction. Also, good webapps are often _better_ than native apps, as they can support tabs. > And if this is such a compelling value proposition for full-featured desktop productivity applications, why didn't Java Web Start set the world on fire? Because it reli…

> Also, good webapps are often _better_ than native apps, as they can support tabs

All the native apps I use support tabs, its a basic feature of the macOS windowing APIs https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nswindowtab...

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#180

Post by gblargg »

SoftTalker wrote: post #146
hn_acc1 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, I prefer desktop apps because I KNOW when I've upgraded - it either said "upgrade now?" and did it, or, in the olden days, I had to track it down, or I installed an updated version of a distro, which included updated apps, so I expected some updates. There are some things that NATURALLY lend themselves to a website - like doctor's appointments, bank balance, etc - but it's still a pain when, on logging in to "…

You touched on the one thing I hate most about infrequently used websites. The inevitable popup to "explore our new features." Hell no, I don't want to do that. I haven't logged on in six months, so I'm obviously here now with a purpose in mind and I want to do that as quickly as possible and then close the tab.

Might as well use another site if it's going to be all different since the last time. That's a big reason I use local apps, because I control when (and if) they get "upgraded" (and can roll back if I don't like them).
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