Electron is flash for the desktop (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#861

Post by fenomas » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 2:35 AM UTC

josephg wrote: post #803

fenomas wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These huge CPU sinks making it through to release required nobody to even glance at a CPU graph. Every bug looks egregious in hindsight; just because an app has one is no reason to assume the engineers who made it don't bother to test anything. Also: that particular issue only hurt idle CPU usage, and the usage was something like 13% CPU usage IIRC. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing that sets off klaxons.

> Every bug looks egregious in hindsight Most bugs are of the form "do X then Y then it doesn't work". These idle CPU bugs are reproduced simply by opening the application. I accept that 13% idle usage is invisible for most developers - but that's a bit disappointing. I notice stuff like this just by idly glancing at my CPU meter from time to time. An app that's sitting on high idle usage sets off klaxons for me.

You're missing my point. All software has bugs; something always "makes it past test". Pointing at whichever bug did make it into production and saying "gosh those developers must not be testing anything" is silly.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#862

Post by exception_e » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 3:00 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #576

cr0sh wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But - can I get a copy of Notepad++ on my Linux box? No? Now - I know there are a ton of other options for Linux, but the thing is, I can't jump from system to system and have the same app with the same experience - even if the app was developed as a native app for all of the platforms, because each has a slightly different native GUI implementation and usage which doesn't translate fully between each. So now I have…

> But - can I get a copy of Notepad++ on my Linux box? Yes.

Without wine, you can't.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#863

Post by nickpsecurity » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 3:05 AM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #614

baddox wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different people have vastly different use cases. I haven't experienced a performance issue with desktop Slack or any other (non-game) application for many years. Sure, if I look at how much RAM Slack is using I'd probably conclude that it's more than it needs to be, but I haven't had an issue with RAM usage for, gee, probably ten years. As for battery, again, my laptop battery has been little more than a UPS for at…

It's mostly CPU performances I experience. Rendering any video, gif, website takes sizeable CPU power (for a cheap CPU in power saving mode). Never had issue with RAM. I can remember a few friends who bought netbooks with 2GB memory some years ago, they quickly realized that they simply cannot run their development environment in that. (I'm talking swap death where a click that should take 1 second to act takes 1 ent…

Right now I'm using a backup laptop with Intel Celeron. It runs most apps fine. Web sites like Hacker News come up easily and snappily. The CPU fan kicks in when I watch a high-quality movie. It also kicks in on small, web apps. Kicks in big time on Youtube and Facebook. Everything on those is sluggish compared to my native apps. Even if non-technical, I'd know stuff was about to slow down when I go into my browser.

Just bad tools leading to waste users notice. Best to avoid them if possible. Not always possible...

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#864

Post by beezischillin » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 3:09 AM UTC

The best way forward for Electron is probably to get a very thin, light core instead of the current Chromium-based one. Even on a good 16 gigs of ram and an i7 you feel Electron-based applications' effect on a system.

If you want a compromise between easy multiplatform desktop app development and not wasting resources, the ideal way there may be something like Microsoft's React-based desktop framework that they just released. (in my opinion at least)

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#865

Post by nickpsecurity » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 3:12 AM UTC

douche wrote: post #490

coldtea wrote: post #445

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. Yeah, but until Electron and they like, we seldom shipped desktop apps in anything than C, C++, Delphi etc even after all those decades. Which are all as close to the metal as can be. And in fact C/C++ can be as fast, or even faster than hand-rolled assembly most of the time (with few exception), s…

There's probably, line for line, more VB6 desktop apps in existence than any other language. And that's not just because of how verbose VB is...

Hey, I used to use it! :P I came from BASIC background. VB6 was supposedly good for rapid prototyping of GUI apps (esp CRUD variety). I found it would boot up in 1 second, deploy new project in 1 second, and load new app in 1 second. It was also safer so no constant blue screens over common functionality. It also could wrap foreign code in less safe languages which I could still write in an industrial BASIC. One could also export the GUI to code in different language.

Became one of my favorite toys. I'd still use it for GUI prototyping if it was FOSS and kept getting extended. I found even lay people could learn it well enough to get stuff done. Long after, I learned what horrible things lay people did with it. Yet, they got work done and got paid without the IT budget and staff they would've preferred. (shrugs)

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#866

Post by iameli » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 3:18 AM UTC

So minimize your use of the Electron APIs. And then when someone releases a leaner Javascript runtime, port to that, keeping 90% of your application intact.

This would be a good idea even if Electron didn't have these problems.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#867

Post by iameli » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 3:18 AM UTC

So minimize your use of the Electron APIs. And then when someone releases a leaner Javascript runtime, port to that, keeping 90% of your application intact.

This would be a good idea even if Electron didn't have these problems.

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#868

Post by SippinLean » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 3:19 AM UTC

and0 wrote: post #20

Ambroos wrote: post #18

A lot of Slack's high (background) CPU usage is caused by GIFs, in my experience. Just did a quick check on my quadcore MBP, having Slack fullscreen out-of-view with nothing animated in view gives it a CPU usage of 0,1% with spikes up to 2,5%. Switch to a conversation with a single animated party parrot emoji, go to another fullscreen app once again, and CPU usage never drops below a whopping 22%. For an animated par…

I want to say that VS Code had the same issue because of the blinking cursor, which was controlled by a CSS property to toggle.

The underlying issue was with Chromium: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/22900#issuecommen...

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#869

Post by nebabyte » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 3:34 AM UTC

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…

> You know what the alternative to all of these Electron apps coming out is?

Do you think people 'knew' what was going to kill Flash before it died?

Re: Electron is flash for the desktop (2016)

#870

Post by nebabyte » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 3:35 AM UTC

Philipp__ wrote: post #180

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…

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…

I'm not even boycotting it, I just don't use it (or any apps built on it afaik).

Unless they significantly rethink their approach it's significantly flawed without much room for improvement. Plenty of room for something better to come along. Even if it saw mass adoption, the demand for a better base would invite an alternative to gain traction against a sluggish goliath a la Firefox-vs-IE (or Chrome vs Firefox).

Why stick with a doomed formula?