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Is the madness ever going to end?

unixsheikh.com

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Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#231

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

mjevans wrote: post #205
seanp2k2 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy idea that I'm sure isn't an original thought: instead of adapting the languages to deal with abstracting the idiosyncrasies of each OS, change the OSes to expose a universal API to make everything else lighter. I guess that's also kinda Docker or QEMU or V8, but also https://github.com/solo-io/unik if you think about it differently. In other words: hey, Lisp Machines were an excellent idea back then, but they s…

Cross platform 'windowing toolkit' APIs are what's missing. At this point I'd be happy even if Microsoft, Apple, and UNIX likes (who would probably just implement any free open standard anyway) could agree on even ONE such interface. Postscript as a UI language? Fine as long as they all do it. HTML5+ as a UI language? (E.G. like the failed HP Fire or Firefox) Fine as long as they all do it. Some new thing that isn't…

That would be ideal, but there are huge differences between the window implementations on different platforms.

One really obvious example (maybe no longer current - it's been a while since I spent any time on Windows) is that OS X windows are responsive even without focus. So you can scroll around background windows just by hovering without having to click first. Windows doesn't support this.

The bigger problem is that the data structures for menus, chrome, and the rest are completely different. An OS X menu is nothing like a Windows menu is nothing like a Linux menu.

There are systems like Tcl/Tk and Qt which act as middleware between GUI descriptions and specific OS bindings, and they kind of work. But they force devs to learn a separate intermediate language and (IMO) they look crude compared to real native apps.

Of course there are also business reasons why GUI convergence won't happen.

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#232

Post by scotty79 »

goodpoint wrote: post #217
prions wrote: post #18

It will end when people like the author drop their victim mentality and start putting their own ideas into practice. It seems that this person is content with yelling on the sidelines about how good and efficient things used to be. Meanwhile, the shitty tech is winning. According to this author, bad code and bad tools and bad frameworks are reigning supreme over real engineering. Why? "The situation is really bad for…

> drop their victim mentality and start putting their own ideas into practice How? Do you send pull requests to thousands of projects to delete their codebase?

Invest into your own super wonderful alternative and they'll crumble at mere sight of your engineering superiority.

Or not.

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#233

Post by JetAlone »

irrational wrote: post #129

I feel this so much. The direction web development has gone in is so insane to me. The complexity that has been introduced feels like complexity for the sake of complexity. In my opinion, the cons far outweigh the benefits. But I would never say this out loud since it feels like everyone else has drunk the flavoraid and is dismissive of anyone who is not on the bandwagon. I’m just thankful I can develop my own projec…

>I’m just thankful I can develop my own projects without the insanity

What a blessing indeed.. I want to retire from it too, but I've got a long way to go yet to keep making rent.

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#234

Post by JetAlone »

barbarr wrote: post #196
distrill wrote: post #120

> In the past IT people ... where very clever people. People with a high level of intelligence ... I normally don't mind typos and would never comment on a misspelling like this. But I also cringe pretty hard at people lamenting over how dumb people around them are. The fact that this kind of rant is so full of typos is fairly appropriate.

The typos seem to indicate they were using dictation to type

I was wondering about that too. Yeah that's probably it. Maybe carpal tunnel has made it hard for them to type to fix the typos?

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#235

Post by superkuh »

phailhaus wrote: post #85

I feel comfortable with asserting that the author has never worked on a complex web application. This web-dev hate borders on pathological: this is a guy that seems to specialize in Unix/Linux tooling, doesn't have a single tutorial on web app development [1], and yet has an intense hatred towards a space that he barely understands. These types of arguments are incredibly embarrassing to read, not only because they b…

I feel comfortable asserting you've never not used a complex web application, even for your personal non-commercial projects made for fun. The fact that his website (and other projects) is in HTML and doesn't need to be executed is a confirmation of the article ideas not some deficit.

You can justify what you do with JS for money however you want but businesses do it that way because managers decided it's cheapest way for many people to collaborate, not because it's the best way for end users, security, or longevity.

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#236

Post by bunnythefifth »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #213
BeefWellington wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't necessarily disagree with your take but I think you should be making substantive counter-arguments to what the author wrote. Your post is essentially just attacking the author and of little substance in itself.

The original article isn't substantive. I mean, c'mon, the entirety of the argument against Electron apps is > They eat up all the memory you have and still ask for more. They constantly crash and has no value over a native desktop application what so ever - well, perhaps with the only exception that now a 2 year old baby can make something shiny that you can click on with your mouse. I'm kind of a curmudgeon about E…

> I would not normally be quite so much of a jerk about the numerous syntax errors, except that this ends with a suggestion that people, you know, pay for this writing. I don't expect perfection (God knows I make tpyos all the time), but the closing paragraph starts with a sentence that literally has no verb.

Are you really bashing the author for imperfect English? The about page clearly mentions that they are not a native speaker of the language, and even apologises for any imperfections in their writing as a result thereof [1].

I strongly agree with your parent comment that attacking the author for presenting their strong views in an area is unnecessary. Make arguments against what they wrote, not who they are.

A little kindness also goes a long way. What the hell is this obsession with hammering everyone down with unwarranted negativity on this forum.

[1] https://unixsheikh.com/about.html

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#237

Post by maxsilver »

slg wrote: post #193
com2kid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The argument for Electron and React Native isn't "it's modern", it's "it's much cheaper". Expecations have changed. It is 2004, your company needs a simple CRUD app so your employees can work with some structured data in a DB somewhere, let's say so sales can check inventory levels in an existing database. A single developer can start up a Winforms project and throw something together in a matter of days to weeks.…

>A single developer can start up a Winforms project and throw something together in a matter of days to weeks. It can only be used by people on desktops running Windows while they are at the office, but that is fine because that is the world of 2004. ... >People underestimate how simple Windows everywhere made life for developers. Amazing documentation, stupid good tooling, and an obscenely stable platform to develop…

> Even if everyone was running Windows on an corporate machine, it was still more difficult to deploy new code than it is today

Is that true? As someone who was also doing native Windows desktop applications back then (C# and VB in .net from 2006-2010), ClickOnce handled everything pretty reliably for Windows XP/Vista/Server (even with weird DLL requirements -- for example, I had to ship a QuickBooks Desktop API wrapper and propritary Epson drivers in our .net desktop app)

Yes, it's not quite as reliable as "go to my-app.com". But it was way more reliable than Electron's current self-updating (.net ClickOnce loaded in a tiny fraction of the time that Slack and Discord's Electron apps take to check for updates on every launch)

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#238

Post by cheschire »

martinald wrote: post #209
Waterluvian wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m very critical when a company like Slack cannot find the time and resources to make native clients. I’m so #%^*ing tired of it taking three Mississippis to show a channel I click on. But on the whole, I don’t think the armchair critics truly appreciate how Electron reduces the cost by at least an order of magnitude. It’s a brilliant tool for shipping early and fast. My only criticism with these start-up use cases…

I'm actually surprised either Microsoft, Slack or a new startup in the space haven't made a native app yet. Wouldn't even need to be all of them; Teams could be a native Windows app and keep the electron one for mac/linux/mobile. Or Slack could make a native Mac one first. Seems quite mad considering the use/value of the tools and the absolutely enormous user base they have.

Teams moved to Edge instead of Electron. Your point still stands though. Not sure why they decided this was the way.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams/teams...

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#239

Post by [deleted] »

root_axis wrote: post #23

The author is fighting a strawman. Rather than engage with the specific problems these solutions were built to solve they dismissively regard them as just flavor of the week trends purely for the sake of chasing newness. This is true of the entire post, but I'll tackle just one since it's emblematic of my issues with all the rest: The argument for Electron and React Native isn't "it's modern", it's "it's much cheaper…

[deleted]

Re: Is the madness ever going to end?

#240

Post by buu700 »

bunnythefifth wrote: post #236
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original article isn't substantive. I mean, c'mon, the entirety of the argument against Electron apps is > They eat up all the memory you have and still ask for more. They constantly crash and has no value over a native desktop application what so ever - well, perhaps with the only exception that now a 2 year old baby can make something shiny that you can click on with your mouse. I'm kind of a curmudgeon about E…

> I would not normally be quite so much of a jerk about the numerous syntax errors, except that this ends with a suggestion that people, you know, pay for this writing. I don't expect perfection (God knows I make tpyos all the time), but the closing paragraph starts with a sentence that literally has no verb. Are you really bashing the author for imperfect English? The about page clearly mentions that they are not a…

Was about to note the same thing. Agreed with GP on all other points, but I forgave the language mistakes after seeing their about page.

FWIW, while I don't condone it, I do think that any non-native speaker should take such criticism as a compliment. It's a sign that they're good enough to pass for native; if they were clearly struggling to write passable English, the reactions would likely be more polite with helpful pointers.

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