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Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

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Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#781

Post by wvenable »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #642
BuuQu9hu wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing. You know what the alternative to all of the JS that's been written? If your answer is "Keep writing more JS," then you are on another planet. The answer is, "We have fucked ourselves as an ecosystem by permitting a monoculture to flourish, especially one which prides itself on worship of bad languages, bloated runtimes, convoluted abstractions, and general fuckery." Nobody in the last ~20 years has…

You have it exactly backwards. JS succeeded because it's not a monoculture. Within JavaScript there are multiple frameworks, even multiple languages (CoffeeScript, TypeScript, ES6, etc). Win32, Java, MacOS, et al lost because there were such strong standards for doing things the One True Way that competing standards couldn't flourish and the APIs stagnated. In JavaScript, a new framework comes out every year and goes…

JavaScript frameworks are ultimately solving problems that the Web/DOM/JavaScript infrastructure created in the first place. The amount of technology required to create a single page application is staggering yet on the desktop that's just "an application". The technology has been around for 20 years and we're just getting to point in JavaScript where we were 20 years ago.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#782

Post by abiox »

panic wrote: post #767
abiox wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's been that way since forever. if you're not employing expensive top-ranked brilliant engineers writing aggressively optimized, completely bespoke c applications tuned to every cpu model's feature set and performance characteristics... you just might be externalizing. insofar as it benefits the budget, you should probably externalize as much as possible. consumers will provide the fitness function through deciding…

consumers will provide the fitness function through deciding what products they prefer. What about when your users don't have a choice?

hm... performance metrics, possibly? it may be hard to measure.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#783

Post by wvenable »

devmunchies wrote: post #487
BuuQu9hu wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing. You know what the alternative to all of the JS that's been written? If your answer is "Keep writing more JS," then you are on another planet. The answer is, "We have fucked ourselves as an ecosystem by permitting a monoculture to flourish, especially one which prides itself on worship of bad languages, bloated runtimes, convoluted abstractions, and general fuckery." Nobody in the last ~20 years has…

> Nobody in the last ~20 years has cared about writing Web apps before JS came along. There's basically zero money in it Zero money in web apps? You mean like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitch, Netflix, and YouTube? There's way more money is web apps than desktop apps. hands down. I'm not talking about mobile because this is a convo about electron.

Desktop apps like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Photoshop? I too can pick a few ridiculous outliers. Honestly I'm not sure if you're right or wrong but either way that argument isn't good.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#784

Post by username223 »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #97
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…

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…

Those who forget desktop Java will be doomed to repeat it.

For those of you who aren't old enough to have been around, Sun initially pushed Java as a "write once, run everywhere" GUI language. It quickly became clear that Java applications were ugly and terrible everywhere, even in the primitive days of X11R5, when programs used a mixture of Xt, Motif, Qt, GTK, and raw X11 protocol (xv was awesome). Having a Java program for some task was worse than having no program at all, since it would discourage someone from writing a decent native solution.

Fortunately Sun found ways to make money using Java server-side, and Apple helped kill it client-side by not providing it by default.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#785

Post by pdimitar »

harisamin wrote: post #171

A while ago I had been working on a native Mac slack app. I was 70% complete but sidelined it. Should I pick it up again? Would ppl here be interested in paying for something like that? Here are some links to screenshots so you know its not just vaporware :) https://twitter.com/harisamin/status/727634194814373889 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChkTccjVAAAZ0Kt.png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChkTcbMUkAIYolx.png

I'll easily pay you $30 once for it as long as it is open-source and has active commit log. Most of us tech folks hate abandonware, have that in mind.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#786

Post by pdimitar »

golergka wrote: post #655
skratlo wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac citizen. Perhaps you should think of your computer as a thing computing things and showing them on the screen. There were many people in history obsessed with uniformity and it usually didn't end well. Yes, uniformity in UI has benefits, but you should appreciate every single deviation from that. In this case, it's the price for "write once, run everywhere", something that isn't appreciated by Apple and Microsoft…

Appreciate something that has no value for you? Why?

You not having value from Telegram means absolutely nothing and is not an argument.

What's your point?

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#787

Post by seangrogg »

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…

It's worth noting that Node.js - similarly to Python for data analysis - drops down to lower level code for a large chunk of its code base and makes it pretty easy to bind to other languages where performance matters.

Developers are often willing and able to produce high-performance code when the barrier to doing so is low enough.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#788

Post by pdimitar »

dilap wrote: post #176
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.

I downloaded this and signed up just to give it a try, since I've never used a Qt app on the Mac that didn't fall in the uncanny valley of UI -- trying to be native, but failing. This doesn't break the trend. Some problems: - Text boxes are non-native and do not support any standard keystrokes for navigation (this is huge!) - The division between the titlebar and the main app body is weird looking - Highlighting arou…

Three of your points use the word "weird" which immediately puts them in the subjective category (hint: zero argumentative value). "No bounce scroll" is subjective as well, hence no real argument there as well.

Non-native text boxes is a 50/50 issue. I get that it can be alienating for some and that's just as valid as me not caring. But it's still subjective and bears zero argumentative value as well.

Telegram Desktop works very well and is easily the most lightweight messaging app my Macbook 12" has ever seen. And I don't have to fear that I'll get back to my machine after being away for 25 minutes, only to find it losing 40% battery to Slack and Atom.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#789

Post by [deleted] »

smokeyj wrote: post #403

There's two kinds of developers. Dorks who care about programming, and programmers who care about creating deliverable value. What do consumers think about electron apps? That's all that matters. Consumers don't know what the heck electron is, only that their apps work seamlessly across platforms. The only people who complain about electron apps are dorks who have an axe to grind with web developers. I'd rather have…

[deleted]

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#790

Post by pdimitar »

skratlo wrote: post #566
dilap wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downloaded this and signed up just to give it a try, since I've never used a Qt app on the Mac that didn't fall in the uncanny valley of UI -- trying to be native, but failing. This doesn't break the trend. Some problems: - Text boxes are non-native and do not support any standard keystrokes for navigation (this is huge!) - The division between the titlebar and the main app body is weird looking - Highlighting arou…

Mac citizen. Perhaps you should think of your computer as a thing computing things and showing them on the screen. There were many people in history obsessed with uniformity and it usually didn't end well. Yes, uniformity in UI has benefits, but you should appreciate every single deviation from that. In this case, it's the price for "write once, run everywhere", something that isn't appreciated by Apple and Microsoft…

Appreciating efficiency seems to be a negative point in HN these days? I can expect that from Facebook but HN? Ouch.

I agree with you. Efficiency should be on the top three priorities list.

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