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Postman founder here HN folks. Great to see the post get featured on the homepage! Lots of discussion about what is exactly native. I have posted some replies b

by a85 10y ago

Postman founder here HN folks. Great to see the post get featured on the homepage! Lots of discussion about what is exactly native. I have posted some replies but some other points about the choice of words: 1. Postman has 3 million users and about 1.5 million MAUs. When we tell people we have a native app, they get it. People go to our apps page, download the installer and see everything exactly as they expect things to be. 2. We have worked hard on optimizing our UI layer over the past several months including mapping of keyboard shortcuts and smoothening out performance issues. 3. We are able to provide a consistent experience for Windows, Linux and macOS users and people love that EVERYONE in the team can use the same app. That has very clear advantages when development teams are chosing tools. Postman is used by everyone who comes in touch with APIs - product managers, sales, customer support, dev evangelists and a cross-platform app allows everyone to standardize much faster. 4. Reusability in the code base through node packages is amazing to have. 5. We use React and are aiming for reusability of these components in the browser. This includes stuff like visualizations, data rendering etc. Our time to market has come down like crazy. 6. With node, not only do we get reusability across OSes but also between the app and our server-side stuff. We have a command line tool called newman that uses the same runtime (postman-runtime, open-sourced on Github) and the same runtime powers our monitoring service that runs on the cloud. That's just some of the advantages. There is a lot of work going on in optimizing our code base. Ultimately we are validated by whether we do a good job for people who use the application. I have been building Postman over the past 5 years now and that has been the core guiding princple.

psyklic 10y ago
>> When we tell people we have a native app, they get it. People go to our apps page, download the installer and see everything exactly as they expect things to be. The term "native" is used to describe apps developed for a specific operating system. By this definition, clearly Electron apps (and hence Postman) are not native apps. Having to download an installer doesn't make it native. On smartphones, all apps are installed in the same way. Yet, some are native and others use WebViews. I am making no comment on Postman's quality (in fact I am a customer). However, advertising Postman as native seems a bit disconcerting to me.
- alnitak 10y ago
  The pedantic force is strong here.
  - debaserab2 10y ago
    Not really. Especially not on Hacker News. There's an expectation when someone says native app that you're getting a binary that you compiled from source you created with a reasonable expectation of performance. No one thinks native as being a webview wrapped executable where the authored source is actually a series of HTML, CSS, and javascript. They just don't. Calling it "native" is a misnomer.
    - wging 10y ago
      You're right about the meaning of 'native', but if you expect to have a 'reasonable expectation of performance' just because an app is written as a native binary, you may be sorely disappointed. There are plenty of poorly performing native applications out there, and it's also certainly possible to write minimal, fast HTML/CSS/JavaScript.
      - jorvi 10y ago
        That's comparing outlier to outlier. If you compare two averagely coded apps, something written in C++ will make an absolute joke of something written in Javascript.
      - debaserab2 10y ago
        Absolutely. But you don't start out with a large memory footprint like an electron app, you actually have to code yourself into that problem instead of immediately inheriting it. I'd still argue that most people are going to assume that a native app is probably faster than your average electron app, for a whole host of reasons.
    - batmansmk 10y ago
      What about using electron with the cachedData option...? Or some webassembly thrown into the mix? Is native a development style or a product?
viraptor 10y ago
> When we tell people we have a native app, they get it. Are people here not... people? You seem to describe a desktop app. Bring able to install it has nothing to do with being native or not.
- a85 10y ago
  I could have used the term "users" to say the same thing. And everyone here might not be a user. And our existing users perceive the existing Chrome app as a "desktop" apps too. Postman existing as in-browser extension, then a Chrome "packaged"/desktop app and finally in it's current form. They are also "installed" in a particular way. I'd still prefer the term native over desktop apps.
  - kartickv 10y ago
    I agree. Calling it a desktop app only causes confusion, since it contrasts it with a mobile app.
kyberias 10y ago
I think calling it "standalone app", rather than native would have been more correct. Yeah, go ahead and do exactly that.
- a85 10y ago
  Reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=13949208 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=13949208
aleem 10y ago
Is postman interceptor going away too? The biggest sore-point for me is that I still can't copy-as-curl-request a POST request from Chrome debugger tools (or other browser) and import it into postman. Relevant issue: https://github.com/postmanlabs/postman-app-support/issues/2640 https://github.com/postmanlabs/postman-app-support/issues/26...
fn1 10y ago
I used PostMan on the Mac for a couple of projects and now I'm thinking thrice before even starting the app. The UI makes no sense to me, but I would need an UX study to find out what's up exactly. I just know . that I keep searching for buttons . that somehow Postman never remembers my state. I have these "tabs" open, close them all, close the app, and when coming back there are tabs open again. When I want to close them it asks me about unsaved changes. (Which changes???) . the panes can be resized in a way that you can hide their content, but have to fiddle around with the mouse to find the invisible point where you can size them up again. . when saving a large response (1MB) from somewhere it keeps trying to sync that to the library which means that everything else is becoming really slow. . It's really not easy to rename anything. I click on a Tab, duplicate it, now I have two Tabs with the same name (it does not even say 'duplicate' or 'copy'). I click the title to rename it, nothing happens. . Oh and the title is displayed twice, once in the tab and once beneath it. Clicking on neither of them gives the option to rename. You have to find the invisible pencil icon first. . I think the Tab metaphore isn't appropriate, especially the new Tab page. I would like to close everything. . There should be a feature to auto-name requests or something. I keep being confused between the request, the description, the two titles. . Don't get me started on managing environments.
- a85 10y ago
  Feel free to email me at help@getpostman.com and we can go through each of these concerns :) There is a big discussion on tab behavior on our Github tracker. There are different ways and workflows that you can adopt and settings that you can tweak. On environments: we have autocomplete and inline editing for variables on the way. That should help.
- on_and_off 10y ago
  >that somehow Postman never remembers my state. I have these "tabs" open, close them all, close the app, and when coming back there are tabs open again. When I want to close them it asks me about unsaved changes. (Which changes???) that's an anecdotal remark but it seems to me that I hear this a lot about webapps. is there anything that makes cleanly handling state harder in a web based app ? Or is it just that the quality bar is lower ?
kelvin0 10y ago
I had to read a few comments on HN and Google your product to understand what it is. reading on your website told me (almost) nothing about your product. (I am more a desktop dev, very new to web). From https://www.getpostman.com/ https://www.getpostman.com/ "A powerful GUI platform to make your API development faster & easier, from building API requests through testing, documentation and sharing" Then searching, I found this: https://seesparkbox.com/foundry/api_testing_with_postman https://seesparkbox.com/foundry/api_testing_with_postman "...for interacting with HTTP APIs. It presents you with a friendly GUI for constructing requests and reading responses" It's a bit sad I (an experienced dev) need to google outside your site to find out what your product does. Hope this helps.
- a85 10y ago
  We are always working on making things better. Some videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCocudCGVb3MmhWQ1aoIgUQw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCocudCGVb3MmhWQ1aoIgUQw
sapphire_tomb 10y ago
Does it support NTLM authentication yet? If not, I still can't make the switch. :(
- a85 10y ago
  Highest priority item on the list! :)
danpalmer 10y ago
I appreciate that you consider these all to be big advantages, but as a user they fall somewhere between "doesn't matter" and "makes the product worse". The only benefit to your users is the faster time to market, and that's debatable. As a user, I want an application that performs well (which Electron apps typically don't, my main issue with Atom and Slack), and I want an app that fits in well with my platform, which an app designed to be the same on all platforms just isn't good at.
- a85 10y ago
  Time to market means the difference between dying and not dying. I built Postman as a solo developer for 18+ months so have seen the extreme end. Also, platform parity is not easy to achieve. Even within Javascript environments. Other tools like Fiddler, Charles Proxy etc. for example have NEVER been ported natively to another platform for this reason.

by a85 10y ago

psyklic 10y ago

>> When we tell people we have a native app, they get it. People go to our apps page, download the installer and see everything exactly as they expect things to be. The term "native" is used to describe apps developed for a specific operating system. By this definition, clearly Electron apps (and hence Postman) are not native apps. Having to download an installer doesn't make it native. On smartphones, all apps are installed in the same way. Yet, some are native and others use WebViews. I am making no comment on Postman's quality (in fact I am a customer). However, advertising Postman as native seems a bit disconcerting to me.

alnitak 10y ago
The pedantic force is strong here.
- debaserab2 10y ago
  Not really. Especially not on Hacker News. There's an expectation when someone says native app that you're getting a binary that you compiled from source you created with a reasonable expectation of performance. No one thinks native as being a webview wrapped executable where the authored source is actually a series of HTML, CSS, and javascript. They just don't. Calling it "native" is a misnomer.
  - wging 10y ago
    You're right about the meaning of 'native', but if you expect to have a 'reasonable expectation of performance' just because an app is written as a native binary, you may be sorely disappointed. There are plenty of poorly performing native applications out there, and it's also certainly possible to write minimal, fast HTML/CSS/JavaScript.
    - jorvi 10y ago
      That's comparing outlier to outlier. If you compare two averagely coded apps, something written in C++ will make an absolute joke of something written in Javascript.
    - debaserab2 10y ago
      Absolutely. But you don't start out with a large memory footprint like an electron app, you actually have to code yourself into that problem instead of immediately inheriting it. I'd still argue that most people are going to assume that a native app is probably faster than your average electron app, for a whole host of reasons.
  - batmansmk 10y ago
    What about using electron with the cachedData option...? Or some webassembly thrown into the mix? Is native a development style or a product?

viraptor 10y ago

> When we tell people we have a native app, they get it. Are people here not... people? You seem to describe a desktop app. Bring able to install it has nothing to do with being native or not.

a85 10y ago
I could have used the term "users" to say the same thing. And everyone here might not be a user. And our existing users perceive the existing Chrome app as a "desktop" apps too. Postman existing as in-browser extension, then a Chrome "packaged"/desktop app and finally in it's current form. They are also "installed" in a particular way. I'd still prefer the term native over desktop apps.
- kartickv 10y ago
  I agree. Calling it a desktop app only causes confusion, since it contrasts it with a mobile app.

kyberias 10y ago

I think calling it "standalone app", rather than native would have been more correct. Yeah, go ahead and do exactly that.

a85 10y ago
Reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=13949208 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=13949208

aleem 10y ago

Is postman interceptor going away too? The biggest sore-point for me is that I still can't copy-as-curl-request a POST request from Chrome debugger tools (or other browser) and import it into postman. Relevant issue: https://github.com/postmanlabs/postman-app-support/issues/2640 https://github.com/postmanlabs/postman-app-support/issues/26...

fn1 10y ago

I used PostMan on the Mac for a couple of projects and now I'm thinking thrice before even starting the app. The UI makes no sense to me, but I would need an UX study to find out what's up exactly. I just know . that I keep searching for buttons . that somehow Postman never remembers my state. I have these "tabs" open, close them all, close the app, and when coming back there are tabs open again. When I want to close them it asks me about unsaved changes. (Which changes???) . the panes can be resized in a way that you can hide their content, but have to fiddle around with the mouse to find the invisible point where you can size them up again. . when saving a large response (1MB) from somewhere it keeps trying to sync that to the library which means that everything else is becoming really slow. . It's really not easy to rename anything. I click on a Tab, duplicate it, now I have two Tabs with the same name (it does not even say 'duplicate' or 'copy'). I click the title to rename it, nothing happens. . Oh and the title is displayed twice, once in the tab and once beneath it. Clicking on neither of them gives the option to rename. You have to find the invisible pencil icon first. . I think the Tab metaphore isn't appropriate, especially the new Tab page. I would like to close everything. . There should be a feature to auto-name requests or something. I keep being confused between the request, the description, the two titles. . Don't get me started on managing environments.

a85 10y ago
Feel free to email me at help@getpostman.com and we can go through each of these concerns :) There is a big discussion on tab behavior on our Github tracker. There are different ways and workflows that you can adopt and settings that you can tweak. On environments: we have autocomplete and inline editing for variables on the way. That should help.
on_and_off 10y ago
>that somehow Postman never remembers my state. I have these "tabs" open, close them all, close the app, and when coming back there are tabs open again. When I want to close them it asks me about unsaved changes. (Which changes???) that's an anecdotal remark but it seems to me that I hear this a lot about webapps. is there anything that makes cleanly handling state harder in a web based app ? Or is it just that the quality bar is lower ?

kelvin0 10y ago

I had to read a few comments on HN and Google your product to understand what it is. reading on your website told me (almost) nothing about your product. (I am more a desktop dev, very new to web). From https://www.getpostman.com/ https://www.getpostman.com/ "A powerful GUI platform to make your API development faster & easier, from building API requests through testing, documentation and sharing" Then searching, I found this: https://seesparkbox.com/foundry/api_testing_with_postman https://seesparkbox.com/foundry/api_testing_with_postman "...for interacting with HTTP APIs. It presents you with a friendly GUI for constructing requests and reading responses" It's a bit sad I (an experienced dev) need to google outside your site to find out what your product does. Hope this helps.

a85 10y ago
We are always working on making things better. Some videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCocudCGVb3MmhWQ1aoIgUQw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCocudCGVb3MmhWQ1aoIgUQw

sapphire_tomb 10y ago

Does it support NTLM authentication yet? If not, I still can't make the switch. :(

a85 10y ago
Highest priority item on the list! :)

danpalmer 10y ago

I appreciate that you consider these all to be big advantages, but as a user they fall somewhere between "doesn't matter" and "makes the product worse". The only benefit to your users is the faster time to market, and that's debatable. As a user, I want an application that performs well (which Electron apps typically don't, my main issue with Atom and Slack), and I want an app that fits in well with my platform, which an app designed to be the same on all platforms just isn't good at.

a85 10y ago
Time to market means the difference between dying and not dying. I built Postman as a solo developer for 18+ months so have seen the extreme end. Also, platform parity is not easy to achieve. Even within Javascript environments. Other tools like Fiddler, Charles Proxy etc. for example have NEVER been ported natively to another platform for this reason.