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Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

josephg.com

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Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#251

Post by blueprint »

loppers92 wrote: post #96
blueprint wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe it has something to do with time-to-market for existing web apps, or other loserish things. No, can't be. You must be right. Especially because you know more than one language. After all, when you learn more languages, it makes your words more true!

Can you tell me why Microsoft and google trying to write either supersets or a javascript clone to replace javascript? Because that language is an issue itself. I don't know one good programmer who is saying that you need javascript to make real money or that language is awesome. This language is a bug nothing else.

Just because that tangential point can be made to appear valid in a different context, it does not mean that it is the proof to support your original argument. Sounds like you're primarily just upset about Javascript and/or front-end web technologies.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#252

Post by _jal »

ballenf wrote: post #235
matthewmacleod wrote: post #97

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…

> ... Electron applications are shite in comparison with proper native applications. Is that true from a user's perspective? The average user I know would not have the idea that Slack is somehow inherently worse than say MS Word or any other truly native app they use everyday. What would Slack gain by integrating better with my Mac? Slack starts up too fast for me to read the little quotation (penultimate Macbook Pro…

> Is that true from a user's perspective?

It is for this user.

> What would Slack gain by integrating better with my Mac?

Far better resource management, one would hope, for starters. As the article pointed out, when you're measuring your IRC client's memory use in hundreds of megs, there's a problem.

It isn't uncommon for me to need to choose which "essential" apps to turn off to get something done on a maxed-out MBP. So Slack gets turned off, and maybe someone gets annoyed that I don't respond to something, while I run a few VMs in Slack's former memory space.

As far as other things, well, using a platform's capabilities as appropriate is generally considered good form - HCI concerns, and, generally, just people like things to be consistent. I don't know why we're supposed to forget this now.

I personally don't care if Electron goes away or what, but to the extent that I'm forced to run Slack by my cow-orkers' choices, it sure would be nice if it were less of a bucket of ass.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#253

Post by erinaceousjones »

lazyjones wrote: post #134

I fully agree with the author, only I'd call Electron the PHP for the desktop (it does help people get started quickly, at a cost). There are working solutions for cross-platform native UI development and high-performance, slim code: http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Multiplatform_Programming... The problem is: most people don't bother learning new languages unless it's very easy (well, Pascal is!). I hope Go will h…

Don't forget about [PHP for the desktop](http://gtk.php.net/) ;)

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#254

Post by stiGGG »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #93
anaisbetts wrote: post #74

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…

The other thing I find ionic about this whole article is that it's perfectly easy to only use Slack within Chrome as a normal web app. And the UI is almost exactly the same because it's nearly all the same code. So if the Electron bloat is such as issue for you, just hit Slack in the web directly.

>So if the Electron bloat is such as issue for you, just hit Slack in the web directly.

That's even more horrible, i've tried it. Chrome uses his own notifications on macOS instead of integrating with systems notification manager and always when one of these ugly, poor animated guys pops up, i can search through my 100 open browser tabs to find the damn chat. Millions of flamewars were fought about what's the best window manager and we are ending up with a single window with a tabbar? Are you kids serious?

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#255

Post by Kipters »

zegerjan wrote: post #92
Gonzih wrote: post #61

Telegram Desktop is very good example of modern desktop client done in the most efficient way. C++ and qt, nothing else. Works like a charm an all major operating systems. Easy to install, use and update. Great stuff.

Except they've rewritten their Mac app in Swift now. So there must be a reason they moved away from that.

They didn't rewrite the app. There are multiple official apps, you could also write your own (that's what is happening for Unigram, an open source UWP client for Telegram)

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#256

Post by acuozzo »

paraboul wrote: post #71
Etheryte wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both your webpage and your docs are riddled with typos and the like. While it isn't indicative of code or project quality, it sure makes taking the project seriously a lot harder.

Hey, We're French and it's indeed hard for us to get this perfectly right and focusing on the project itself at the same time. We're planning to move this to github in order to let the community help us on this.

I'm more than willing to help edit the English you write for this project. Let me know if you're interested.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#257

Post by defined »

bmpafa wrote: post #141
matthewmacleod wrote: post #97

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…

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

Nonsense. The optimization they are referring to is not premature in any sense of the word. If anything, it's belated and overdue.

In any case, the originator of the phrase, Knuth, specifically said that it related to "small efficiencies".

Nobody would call Electron's efficiencies that need to be addressed, "small".

There's a good discussion here: http://wiki.c2.com/?PrematureOptimization

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#258

Post by obstinate »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #166
obstinate wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't say I agree. Native apps are often garbage. Discord is another Electron app that I think is actually quite a bit better in most dimensions (attractiveness, functionality, speed) than the native apps it replaces (Mumble, Teamspeak, Skype, etc.).

But is that due to technology choices, or due to more attention being paid to UX? (and I do believe webapps give more flexiblity in that regard) I get the feeling that UX and UI designers for web- and mobile apps are just a different breed than their native desktop equivalents. It might just be my Windows bias though, iirc Windows didn't have a strong / great UX guideline until their current one came around - and I h…

It's never going to be possible to fully separate the factors out. With infinite time and effort by the exact same set of devs, I'm willing to grant that electron apps will be worse than native apps. But that hypothetical circumstance (same set of devs, infinite time and effort) does not exist in reality.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#259

Post by smohare »

positivecomment wrote: post #163
pikzen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I write Electron apps and call myself an engineer, because I am an engineer. Could you please explain why am I being hilarious?

Some engineers take exception with software developers using term, given that the disciplines are somewhat different.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#260

Post by Philipp__ »

dubcanada wrote: post #189
Philipp__ wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's bullsh*t. Sorry but what you said was factually incorrect. What Electron did is it enabled all those web devs (even front end guys) to write "desktop" apps. And trade offs are certainly visible. I am boycotting Electron. I have zero Electron apps installed, and recommend strongly against it. I hate that web dev mindset that has been pushed into desktop userland. It just doesn't work that way. Write native…

Can you expand on your last sentence? How is React + browser rendering any different then QT rendering? How is HTML/CSS any different from QT layout xml? How is QT sockets/threading any different from NodeJS sockets/threading? They are very very close to each-other. Obviously they are not exactly the same, and I used QT in this example. But they are not wrong, or completely different.

Haven't wrote a lot of QT, but Cocoa/DELFI felt totally different than writing Electron app GUI.

Writing Electron app felt like sketching, at least to me. You place one line of code with tags and boom there's a button. Now QT takes place somewhere in between, and it still provides nice native multiplatform environment that could be appealing to web developers.

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