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High-Level Is the Goal

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Re: High-Level Is the Goal

#61

Post by fullstackchris »

Escapado wrote: post #49
Sevii wrote: post #39

He makes an interesting point that we are coding programs that run more slowly now than they did 10 years ago. Javascript has only gotten faster over the last decade, computer have faster CPUs and more RAM. The problem is the frameworks and the programs have gotten slower. What did we gain exactly? Reddit is better at displaying videos and images now. But it's slower despite faster hardware.

I hate the state of affairs. That said my guess is what we „gained“ is tons of telemetry, tracking and the likes, engineers not needing to think about performance to get a feature out, which absolutely lowers the bar to entry, high level abstractions and ux and visual bells and whistles of varying importance and quality (infinite scrolling, streaming updates, image blend modes, blur effects, scroll timeline animation…

Then go ahead and write vanilla JS and raw HTML! No one is asking you to use any of these bad "state of affairs". If you do build a 100+ page SaaS app without any framework, let me know, I'd love to see how it works.

Re: High-Level Is the Goal

#62

Post by wiseowise »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #27
relyks wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Flutter?

Not bad for mobile apps, but still sucks a lot for desktop support. Also, really wished they've opted for a more general language like C# rather than Dart - but that's inevitable since Google needed to make use of their Dart language after they've failed to standardize it on the Web (and I think they don't want to use a language developed by Microsoft of all companies)

They've picked Dart because it was the only language that could have small aot binaries, hot reload capable runtime without compromise and most importantly because they could influence development of the language.

C# is one of the worst choices they could make at the time.

Re: High-Level Is the Goal

#63

Post by wiseowise »

ragall wrote: post #30
cyber_kinetist wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main consensus in the native space is that Qt is still miles ahead of any other cross-platform desktop framework (including WxWidgets). Doesn't mean that Qt is anywhere good - it's just the least worst option out of all. I hoped someday Flutter might be mature enough for desktop development, but so far they've focused most of their efforts on mobile and I don't think this will change in the future.

> The main consensus in the native space is that Qt is still miles ahead of any other cross-platform desktop framework (including WxWidgets). Doesn't mean that Qt is anywhere good - it's just the least worst option out of all. That's not consensus. I very much reject a "desktop framwork". Qt has its own abstractions for everything from sockets to executing processes and loading images, and I don't want that. It force…

> Anything that forces a specific language and/or runtime that I don't like is dead in the water.

Ftfy.

Re: High-Level Is the Goal

#64

Post by Jensson »

fullstackchris wrote: post #59
Sevii wrote: post #39

He makes an interesting point that we are coding programs that run more slowly now than they did 10 years ago. Javascript has only gotten faster over the last decade, computer have faster CPUs and more RAM. The problem is the frameworks and the programs have gotten slower. What did we gain exactly? Reddit is better at displaying videos and images now. But it's slower despite faster hardware.

The frameworks have NOT gotten slower! God I hate Hackernews sometimes... whats really going on is actually that not a single dev reads the release notes / improvements / learns how to actually use the framework. If anything, the latest React release was almost purely a performance improvement release (and has been for a while) ...most people need to fully understand a tool they use before complaining about it. Every…

> whats really going on is actually that not a single dev reads the release notes / improvements / learns how to actually use the framework.

If everyone fails to read framework release notes then the problem is frameworks. If you change so quickly and often that almost no developer bothers to keep up to date then you are the problem, not the developer.

Re: High-Level Is the Goal

#65

Post by locknitpicker »

cjfd wrote: post #41

Sure, high level is the goal. But the question is whether the abstractions are the correct ones that fit the problem. Almost all software that I have encountered that was painful to work with chose a framework that did not apply to their situation. E.g., develop a generic user interface framework which makes it very quick to produce a standard page with a series of standard fields but at the same time makes it very p…

> Sure, high level is the goal. But the question is whether the abstractions are the correct ones that fit the problem.

Not quite. The path to high level always involves abstractions that fit the problem. There is still room for a decision to replace high-level with low-level in some very specific bits of a hot path, but that decision also takes into consideration the tradeoffs of foregoing straight-forward high-level solutions with low-level versions that are harder to maintain. The sales pitch to push code that is harder to maintain requires a case that goes way beyond performance arguments.

Re: High-Level Is the Goal

#66

Post by ogoffart »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #11

I think the real conclusion is: someone has to make a native cross-platform desktop UI framework that doesn't suck. (Yeah Qt exists, but it really sucks...) Until then, everyone will default to just using the browser for a desktop app, and the beatings will continue. Because of this, I'm really looking forward for PanGUI to step up ( https://www.pangui.io/ ), their UI framework is very promising and I would start usi…

> someone has to make a native cross-platform desktop UI framework that doesn't suck

This is exactly what we're trying to do with Slint (https://github.com/slint-ui/slint ). It’s a native, cross-platform UI framework for desktop and embedded (Rust/C++/Python/JS), with no browser runtime

Re: High-Level Is the Goal

#67

Post by teiferer »

> a gigantic manual that lists every property of the system in excruciating detail, which is totally worthless for learning and barely usable as reference.

It's the only usable form of reference! I want all the details to be presented in a reference. Where else?

> low-level tools are terrible too

It seems to me the author is confusing lack of familiarity with lack of existence. There are lots of fantastic tools out there, you just need to learn them. They don't know them, so conclude they don't exist.

> We could have editor plugins and language servers to help beginners along

We already have all that.

Re: High-Level Is the Goal

#68

Post by jakkos »

noelwelsh wrote: post #60

A few thoughts: * These articles always say that hardware is amazing but software sucks. Let's not forget that hardware has its problems. Intel's management engine is a pile of complexity: https://www.zdnet.com/article/minix-intels-hidden-in-chip-op... . The x86_64 instruction set is hardly inspiring, and I imagine we lose a pile of performance because it fails to adequately represent the underlying hardware. (E.g. t…

> hardware

Sure x86 is an absolute mess, but I don't think it's a primary bottleneck. High end x86 cpus still beat high end ARM cpus by a significant margin on raw performance. Even supposing x86/ARM are bottlenecks... yeah a bottleneck at double digit billion ops per second.

> Languages unlock performance for the masses. Javascript will never be truly fast because it doesn't represent the machine.

C# and Go are already really fast (https://github.com/ixy-languages/ixy-languages) languages for the masses and at this point you can compile most things to WASM to get them run in the browser.

Re: High-Level Is the Goal

#69

Post by ogoffart »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #32
rubenvanwyk wrote: post #24

So from what I understand… Someone needs to build Qt’s successor, probably with more beginner-friendly declarative semantics (akin to HCL or Cue) and probably with syntax closest to YAML or Python (based on learning curve, beginner readability etc). The backend will probably have to be something written in Zig (likely) or Nim (capable, less likely) and will probably have to leverage OpenGL/Metal, WebGL and WASM. Obvi…

There is Slint ( https://slint.dev/ ), which was a company founded by ex-Qt devs and seem to be trying to make a better alternative to Qt. The core engine is built wiht Rust, but they also provide C++ and JS bindings and also have a QML-like scripting language you can use to design UI quickly. So far I think they've solidified their revenue model by catering to embedded devices, but I haven't seen a solid usecase for…

There are some desktop apps made with Slint. For example:

- WesAudio has a VST plugin for audio applications: https://slint.dev/success/wesaudio-daw

- LibrePCB 2.0, is migrating their code from Qt to Slint and should soon be released. https://librepcb.org/blog/2025-09-12_preview_of_next_gen_ui/

- krokiet: https://github.com/qarmin/czkawka/blob/master/krokiet/README...

Re: High-Level Is the Goal

#70

Post by moffkalast »

> At the time, it took New Reddit almost 200 milliseconds to collapse a single comment. That is 200 milliseconds of pure JavaScript, with hardly any DOM work in sight. If you care about quality software, your jaw should be on the floor. It is a staggering amount of waste for what should have been a few DOM calls. And you feel it as a user: an ugly, intense hitch.

> New Reddit was a React app

Many such cases. React is basically synonymous with horrible lag and extreme bloat to me. Its name is the highest form of irony.

I'm really not sure why JS frameworks in general are so popular (except to facilitate easy corporate turnover), when the browser already gives you a pretty complete toolset that's the easiest to use out of any GUI library in existence. It's not low level by any means.

Granted something like an feature is desperately missing from the html spec, but there are lightweight solutions for it.

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