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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)

#711

Post by omginternets »

vbezhenar wrote: post #703
sametmax wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computing for ever. We use C to avoid writing assembly. Use Java to avoid writing C. Use Python to avoid writing Java. The world is asking for more and more software, and the resources to provide it are not following so people are taking shortcuts. Want something better ? Someone has to pay for it.

C is generally faster, than hand-written assembly, so it doesn't make sense to write software in assembler. For macOS desktop applications are written with Objective C, which is C with fast message-passing, and doesn't trade much to speed. Swift is modern alternative, but it doesn't trade anything for speed either. For Linux applications are traditionally written with C and Gtk or with C++ and Qt. Those options are b…

>C is generally faster, than hand-written assembly, so it doesn't make sense to write software in assembler.

That's true now. It wasn't true then. The point still stands.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#712

Post by BatFastard »

cr0sh wrote: post #573
joshstrange wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a web developer, I know that might be a dirty title in some circle but I really don't care. There are countless amazing things built on technology that people hate for whatever reason. PHP, JavaScript, and even Flash comes to mind. Guess what wins in the end? The thing that gets the job done quickest and easiest. It's one thing I really dislike about HN, the need to let everyone else know how terrible their deci…

> Real programmers design and build their own FPGA's for their code... https://xkcd.com/378/ /I don't disagree with you one bit...

I LOVE that!

I used to be one of the real programmers, now I program in Flash, strange...

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#713

Post by BatFastard »

zwetan wrote: post #536
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…

well... actually "flash for desktop" best known as Adobe AIR is a pretty good alternative to Electron.

And is Electron more secure? I guess it doesn't have hackers all around the world trying to find vulnerabilities.

Is that good or bad?

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#714

Post by vbezhenar »

bluejekyll wrote: post #359
sametmax wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah and some use C because Java is too slow. The point is, there is nothing new here, the history of computing is repeating itself. It's just now we have better toys, a bigger market and the stakes are higher.

And this is the reason that I've become such a huge fan of Rust... back to the metal, high level interface like Java.

Rust doesn't bring much in that aspect. You could use C++ for performant high level abstraction for many years before Rust. Rust brings memory safety and that's huge. But it's not anything like Java, it's much harder.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#715

Post by drtse4 »

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…

Nice rant, can you name at least one of those mind-blowing apps that happens to be sold for real money?

Everyone in the last 40 years built and sold a multitude of destkop apps and they never stopped. Stop drinking the cool aid, and even if some bozo upvotes you on hackernews it does not mean that you are right (actually nowadays the opposite is more probable).

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#716

Post by 4D1 »

smokeyj wrote: post #472
MarkMc wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with the content of your message, just wish you had used a word less derogatory than 'dorks'

I don't think it's derogatory enough. There's always these same rehashed arguments against electron - and it's always because of the same reason. The developer thinks he's a special snowflake and knows something that everyone else doesn't. He knows the "right way" and everyone else is dumb for not realizing it. FTA: It turns out modern operating systems already have nice, fast UI libraries. So use them you clod! FTA:…

One problem, you cant optimize at all with electron, you are stuck with shoving a complete web browser solution into your program to make a GUI.

You are stuck with a massive amount of dependencies (html/css parser, javascript VM...) to various massive projects for what, easy cross platform support? Sure cross platform GUI's have been a problem, but any developer can agree that dependency to this level within professional code is a great way to cause a massive amount of headache from required library changes, bugs and memory leaks that you have NO control over due to it not being your code, required security updates that require code refactoring for no fault of your own, etc.

People keep bringing this up because it is a bad solution to a large problem. Maybe the reason its being rehashed so much is because there is truth to what is being said.

I would try finding a graphics library such as opengl, and build a UI in the spirit of something like:

https://github.com/ocornut/imgui https://github.com/vurtun/nuklear

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#717

Post by Rapzid »

pharrington wrote: post #670
nojvek wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By walking just one day a year than taking my car, I can offset the electricity consumed by my laptop. You do have a point though. You make a difference where you can.

The problem is that despite how good it feels, individuals simply optimizing their individual activity does not scale to the societal scope. Post-agrarian humans literally behave and think via shared infrastructure. The only way individuals can make lasting improvements to society is to improve the infrastructure.

Individuals changing their behaviour can lead to societal change though.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#718

Post by pandalicious »

kyberias wrote: post #548
d--b wrote: post #196

Electron is just another proof that ease of programming matters. Node.js too was a terrible idea. Who in their right mind would write server-side javascript? It turns out: pretty much anyone who didn't want to have to screw around for hours before being able to respond to a simple http request. Similarly, it is way harder to write a desktop app than a browser app. DOM / CSS manipulation, however bad they are, are yea…

> DOM / CSS manipulation, however bad they are, are years ahead compared to what you can easily do with WPF and friends. This doesn't make any sense. It's much easier to create UI with XAML (WPF) because it's designed for that purpose alone. HTML / CSS really isn't.

Yep, WPF is probably the best platform at present for creating rich GUI apps. It's failure to really take off is overwhelmingly caused by its complete lack of cross-platform capability. If you're creating a new Windows app from scratch it's really hard to justify using a GUI framework that eliminates the option of going cross-platform in the future without needing to do a near-total rewrite.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#719

Post by fknop »

rayiner wrote: post #661
pluma wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've switched from Sublime Text 3 (native) to VSCode (Electron) and I couldn't be happier. If I didn't know it's electron based I wouldn't have been able to tell as a user. YMMV so don't generalise.

It's halves my battery life compared to Emacs or BBEdit.

If your battery is more important, just stick to Emacs.

What machine are you using ? I have a 2 year old thinkpad, it's still 10h+ in full brightness, vscode, compiling, etc. And it's the screen brightness that consumes the most battery.

It used to do 20h, but the main battery is external and can be replaced so it's a good thing. I would really recommand thinkpads to everyone instead of going for macbooks for example.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#720

Post by aoeusnth1 »

bhauer wrote: post #216
pdabbadabba wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to the extent that these costs degrade the user experience, I'm not sure they really are externalizing them. Presumably they pay this cost in the form of decreased user satisfaction. It's just that this is a cost they are willing to pay. There may be an interesting economic lesson here: it really is not that easy to externalize costs. It surely can be done (air pollution), but it requires some special circumsta…

> Well, to the extent that these costs degrade the user experience, I'm not sure they really are externalizing them. Presumably they pay this cost in the form of decreased user satisfaction. It's just that this is a cost they are willing to pay. Precisely. I don't use Slack in part because its desktop application is irrationally bloated for its use-case. Although I have other reasons as well, they are enduring a cost…

Couldn't they just pay to offset the performance cost of their application? I doubt the cost would be much compared to the development difference.
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