I've spent the last two years building a new email client • Hacker News Board

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#251

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Wed, May 02, 2018, 1:07 PM UTC

SyneRyder wrote: post #51

red_admiral wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the choice is between paying with money and paying with my personal data, managing my e-mail is one of the things where I'm happy to pull out the credit card. (That's why my e-mail accounts are on places like fastmail instead of gmail.) I get paid money for the software I develop too, after all.

For some of us, email is so important that we are prepared to pay a LOT for a really great client. I'm currently paying around $150/year for Photoshop - email is more important to me than Photoshop. For the right program, I would happily pay $99 for a major release. I think that's what I used to pay for Eudora many years ago. Postbox currently only charges $40 for a lifetime free-upgrades license. In my case, they ar…

Well I was having a good day until you had to go and remind me about the demise of Eudora... ;)

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#252

Post by justtopostthis3 » Wed, May 02, 2018, 1:07 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #232

blowski wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you build something "to use as little RAM as possible, given that it's using Electron"?

OP says that it uses "only 300 MB" of RAM. For an application that deals with primarily with downloading, uploading, and displaying text. How would you respond to someone saying "I raise small mammals, well small given that they are elephants"?

This conversation seems more analogous:

"I raise elephants, but they are bred to be as small as possible."

"They're _either_ elephants, _or_ bred to be as small as possible."

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#253

Post by Boulth » Wed, May 02, 2018, 1:07 PM UTC

discordance wrote: post #26

_RedPanda wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This probably means that the software is not going to be free, right?

I hope it's paid. This guy deserves to get paid for his awesome work, and I will trust it more if I'm paying $.

I agree! I'm frequently paying for software even if I won't use it after a year just to test how well it works. Unpaid is not sustainable. But having source code (Maybe GPL?) is also important.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#254

Post by quakenul » Wed, May 02, 2018, 1:09 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #232

blowski wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you build something "to use as little RAM as possible, given that it's using Electron"?

OP says that it uses "only 300 MB" of RAM. For an application that deals with primarily with downloading, uploading, and displaying text. How would you respond to someone saying "I raise small mammals, well small given that they are elephants"?

That is a tough question but if presented to me in the context of this thread I would probably respond, that it is a poor analogy.

Why do we have to make this complicated? The creator is using Electron, and within that given framework putting focus on RAM optimization. Moving on.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#255

Post by IncRnd » Wed, May 02, 2018, 1:10 PM UTC

wsy wrote: post #162

stephenr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electron apps are web apps though.

Not sure if there is a common agreement about terminology, but my distinction is - web app: loads from a server and connects to a backend to perform its activities. Business logic is on the server. If at all, very limited offline capabilities - desktop app: is installed on the local machine, doesn't need any connection to a backend to work, works offline. I don't mind at all which technology the dev used to implement…

> - web app: loads from a server and connects to a backend to perform its activities. Business logic is on the server. If at all, very limited offline capabilities

You're confusing web apps and client/server apps. Web apps are generally thought of as apps written using web technologies. This means that a web app may not even interact with a back-end server, or a native app may exclusively interact with a back-end server.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#256

Post by callahad » Wed, May 02, 2018, 1:10 PM UTC

SyneRyder wrote: post #34

This looks pretty cool, I'm really pleased to see people writing new email clients, and you've clearly worked very hard on this! I have a bunch of questions that I couldn't find out from the website (but are obscure enough that I shouldn't expect to): * Is this a purely native app, or an Electron / Javascript app? Personally I'm only interested in native apps & Electron would be a deal breaker - but I'm weird, most p…

> Electron would be a deal breaker

You say that like HTML emails don't exist. If the client has to embed a web view anyway...

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#257

Post by kittiepryde » Wed, May 02, 2018, 1:10 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #232

blowski wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you build something "to use as little RAM as possible, given that it's using Electron"?

OP says that it uses "only 300 MB" of RAM. For an application that deals with primarily with downloading, uploading, and displaying text. How would you respond to someone saying "I raise small mammals, well small given that they are elephants"?

Programs do a lot more than they used to. Even though they solve similar problems as their predecessors. 300MB is perfectly fine for a modern app when computer team is measured in GB.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#258

Post by quakenul » Wed, May 02, 2018, 1:13 PM UTC

Super cool!

ctrl+f on "price" or "cost" turns up nothing. Well then, what is your business model going to be?

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#259

Post by badsectoracula » Wed, May 02, 2018, 1:13 PM UTC

api wrote: post #203

sametmax wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you use qt. Which is cross plateform, native, fast and open source.

Ask yourself why more people don't use Qt: (1) With web technologies you can write once and run everywhere including mobile to some extent. Writing a UI multiple times is monumentally expensive. Even huge companies don't like to do this, let alone indie efforts and startups. If Slack with its billion dollars doesn't do it what does that say? (2) The ecosystem is far more active. The web is the largest open source eco…

> To make Qt look good you have to start styling and using its weird surprisingly web-like stylesheets, which takes you out of pure native mode and into a hybrid rendering mode.

Note that Qt does not have a pure native mode, it always draws its own controls - it just has a very good imitation of the native controls (especially on Windows).

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#260

Post by themarkn » Wed, May 02, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

stephenr wrote: post #165

wsy wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if there is a common agreement about terminology, but my distinction is - web app: loads from a server and connects to a backend to perform its activities. Business logic is on the server. If at all, very limited offline capabilities - desktop app: is installed on the local machine, doesn't need any connection to a backend to work, works offline. I don't mind at all which technology the dev used to implement…

“Web app: renders the entire interface in a browser engine” is a pretty simple definition.

This is a simple definition but I think it lacks a couple important things:

1. It doesn't match the words. If that defines a "web app" then where does the web come in? I would think part of being a web app is that you can access it via the web and don't have to install it on your device.

2. Usefulness of the distinction to users. The specific nature of the bundled runtime for the code doesn't matter to anybody. It strikes me as pedantic to insist that because under the hood a thing is running in a browser we should call it a "web app".

I think the most practical distinction is that web apps have a URL as the entrypoint. If you want to use it, you can visit the URL from any browser that supports the app. Web app requires a URL and a compatible browser.

If instead you install the thing on your computer and run it from there, it's not a web app. It's a native app. No URL and it doesn't care what other browser you have installed because it comes with everything it needs. It's independent.

How and why would users be expected to understand anything else?