5 ms·

Please don't blame Electron. VS Code is an Electron-based application and it runs beautifully, with much less RAM/CPU hoarding than Slack. I only run Slack in

Please don't blame Electron. VS Code is an Electron-based application and it runs beautifully, with much less RAM/CPU hoarding than Slack. I only run Slack in a Chrome tab now.

tomc1985 9y ago
Not really... it's still considerably slower than Sublime, Gedit/Pluma (or anything gtksourceview), vim, and others, and VS Code got to where it is today due to much gnashing of teeth I would love to see Electron abandoned...
- pspeter3 9y ago
  What alternative would you propose?
  - tomc1985 9y ago
    I haven't played with QT's JS backend but that looks nice. (It's C++ native) pyGTK is a good toolkit. On the JVM side of things there's JavaFX Almost anything is better than bundling webkit really... even WinForms. And the above list is mostly new stuff for new devs. For the real programmers amongst us there's QT, GTK, JVM's Swing...
    - pspeter3 9y ago
      Do you have an example app in production that cross compiles to all platforms? Also, what constitutes a real programmer?
      - tomc1985 9y ago
        > Also, what constitutes a real programmer? People that aren't afraid of the hard stuff, and don't need software to wipe their ass? As for software... IntelliJ IDEA (Swing), we use internal pyGTK stuff that runs on Win/Mac/Lin, Wireshark (QT), Mozilla Firefox (XUL ... another brilliant UI markup language which died for no good reason), pgAdmin III (wxWidgets) On the music plugin side of things there is a lot of VSTs written in JUCE framework, another good cross-platform UI kit which focused on audio software.
        jamescostian 9y ago
        What if someone told you that using Swing, QT, and GTK were all bad, rsource-wasting things made for people that "need software to wipe their ass", and that "real programmers" use butterflies? Check this out to better understand the "no true scottsman" fallacy: https://www.xkcd.com/378/ https://www.xkcd.com/378/ You're just hating on something new and praising some old things, but in the past, those same things were also hated on for the same reasons (e.g. so many people hated on swing and java in general early on for wasting memory; "real programmers don't use Java") Each electron app spawning up separate instances of chrome is totally wasting memory. Argue about that, instead of "real programmer" bs
        tomc1985 9y ago
        What a novel concept! I feel so edumacated now. Surely my IQ rose by a few points. And to follow-up edit, of course theres no one true scotsman. The assembly-reciting graybeards look down at GUI programmers, who look down on the webdevs, who really don't have anyone to look down upon because they still have so much to learn. And why does the argument always have to be about resource consumption? Does anybody actually even truly care? I hate Electron because it is an incredibly poor use of existing resources and that it leverages tools very inappropriate for the task of creating cross-platform GUI applications. Entire industries are built out of this unholy Frankenstein of duct tape and chicken wire. Now, for the job of quickly banging out an app so the business fucks can make their $$$$$.... now that's different
        jamescostian 9y ago
        Ok great! Expand on what spedifically makes it less appropriate and what makes alternatives more appropriate.
        matthewmacleod 9y ago
        it is an incredibly poor use of existing resources and that it leverages tools very inappropriate for the task of creating cross-platform GUI applications … because there aren't better tools.
    - prewett 9y ago
      Qt is C++ native, but if you start using JS you pull in WebKit (or Chrominum, not sure) again, just like Electron. JS and native performance are mutually exclusive.
  - jbverschoor 9y ago
    NativeScript!
    - pspeter3 9y ago
      NativeScript actually looks really cool. It seems mobile only right now though.
    - tomc1985 9y ago
      XUL 2.0? One can dream :/
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  > it's still considerably slower than Sublime This does not match my experience. Sublime + Plugins to bring it to parity with VSCode === much slower than VSCode. Especially with larger files.
  - tomc1985 9y ago
    Wouldn't know, I don't use plugins. I would imagine that to be the case though, given that it's extra code from third parties. Similar slowdown is common in nearly all plugin systems.
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      Oh true. That's an issue for sure. That said - I value the extra bits that VSCode has over Sublime out of the box. Some may not.
neilalexander 9y ago
I feel like it's still right to blame Electron - it coerces developers into being lazy as it stops them from having to actually think about how their apps behave and what resources they consume. Not to mention that it encourages platform-hostile user interface design in the name of "portability". Damnit, HTML and JavaScript were never meant for this kind of abuse.
- arthurcolle 9y ago
  the users needs should be prioritized over the "platform" while I agree with the overall message here... I hate hate hate how my MacBook "Pro" regularly hits the 8gb limit. Very obnoxious
  - neilalexander 9y ago
    By prioritising the platform, you also prioritise the user. As a macOS user, I am happy with how the average macOS application behaves and looks and feels and I feel like application developers should respect that. Same for someone writing a UWP application for Windows 10, or an Android app. You don't win by degrading the experience on all of your target platforms because it's "easier", you win by carefully considering the people who actually will be using your software and the circumstances under which your application will run.
Deimorz 9y ago
> VS Code is an Electron-based application and it runs beautifully, with much less RAM/CPU hoarding than Slack. Except for that time when it was constantly using 13% CPU to display the blinking cursor: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/22900 https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/22900
- chillee 9y ago
  To be clear, that was a bug with chrome: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13941293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13941293

Please don't blame Electron. VS Code is an Electron-based application and it runs beautifully, with much less RAM/CPU hoarding than Slack. I only run Slack in a Chrome tab now.

tomc1985 9y ago

Not really... it's still considerably slower than Sublime, Gedit/Pluma (or anything gtksourceview), vim, and others, and VS Code got to where it is today due to much gnashing of teeth I would love to see Electron abandoned...

pspeter3 9y ago
What alternative would you propose?
- tomc1985 9y ago
  I haven't played with QT's JS backend but that looks nice. (It's C++ native) pyGTK is a good toolkit. On the JVM side of things there's JavaFX Almost anything is better than bundling webkit really... even WinForms. And the above list is mostly new stuff for new devs. For the real programmers amongst us there's QT, GTK, JVM's Swing...
  - pspeter3 9y ago
    Do you have an example app in production that cross compiles to all platforms? Also, what constitutes a real programmer?
    - tomc1985 9y ago
      > Also, what constitutes a real programmer? People that aren't afraid of the hard stuff, and don't need software to wipe their ass? As for software... IntelliJ IDEA (Swing), we use internal pyGTK stuff that runs on Win/Mac/Lin, Wireshark (QT), Mozilla Firefox (XUL ... another brilliant UI markup language which died for no good reason), pgAdmin III (wxWidgets) On the music plugin side of things there is a lot of VSTs written in JUCE framework, another good cross-platform UI kit which focused on audio software.
      - jamescostian 9y ago
        What if someone told you that using Swing, QT, and GTK were all bad, rsource-wasting things made for people that "need software to wipe their ass", and that "real programmers" use butterflies? Check this out to better understand the "no true scottsman" fallacy: https://www.xkcd.com/378/ https://www.xkcd.com/378/ You're just hating on something new and praising some old things, but in the past, those same things were also hated on for the same reasons (e.g. so many people hated on swing and java in general early on for wasting memory; "real programmers don't use Java") Each electron app spawning up separate instances of chrome is totally wasting memory. Argue about that, instead of "real programmer" bs
        tomc1985 9y ago
        What a novel concept! I feel so edumacated now. Surely my IQ rose by a few points. And to follow-up edit, of course theres no one true scotsman. The assembly-reciting graybeards look down at GUI programmers, who look down on the webdevs, who really don't have anyone to look down upon because they still have so much to learn. And why does the argument always have to be about resource consumption? Does anybody actually even truly care? I hate Electron because it is an incredibly poor use of existing resources and that it leverages tools very inappropriate for the task of creating cross-platform GUI applications. Entire industries are built out of this unholy Frankenstein of duct tape and chicken wire. Now, for the job of quickly banging out an app so the business fucks can make their $$$$$.... now that's different
        jamescostian 9y ago
        Ok great! Expand on what spedifically makes it less appropriate and what makes alternatives more appropriate.
        matthewmacleod 9y ago
        it is an incredibly poor use of existing resources and that it leverages tools very inappropriate for the task of creating cross-platform GUI applications … because there aren't better tools.
  - prewett 9y ago
    Qt is C++ native, but if you start using JS you pull in WebKit (or Chrominum, not sure) again, just like Electron. JS and native performance are mutually exclusive.
- jbverschoor 9y ago
  NativeScript!
  - pspeter3 9y ago
    NativeScript actually looks really cool. It seems mobile only right now though.
  - tomc1985 9y ago
    XUL 2.0? One can dream :/
abritinthebay 9y ago
> it's still considerably slower than Sublime This does not match my experience. Sublime + Plugins to bring it to parity with VSCode === much slower than VSCode. Especially with larger files.
- tomc1985 9y ago
  Wouldn't know, I don't use plugins. I would imagine that to be the case though, given that it's extra code from third parties. Similar slowdown is common in nearly all plugin systems.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    Oh true. That's an issue for sure. That said - I value the extra bits that VSCode has over Sublime out of the box. Some may not.

neilalexander 9y ago

I feel like it's still right to blame Electron - it coerces developers into being lazy as it stops them from having to actually think about how their apps behave and what resources they consume. Not to mention that it encourages platform-hostile user interface design in the name of "portability". Damnit, HTML and JavaScript were never meant for this kind of abuse.

arthurcolle 9y ago
the users needs should be prioritized over the "platform" while I agree with the overall message here... I hate hate hate how my MacBook "Pro" regularly hits the 8gb limit. Very obnoxious
- neilalexander 9y ago
  By prioritising the platform, you also prioritise the user. As a macOS user, I am happy with how the average macOS application behaves and looks and feels and I feel like application developers should respect that. Same for someone writing a UWP application for Windows 10, or an Android app. You don't win by degrading the experience on all of your target platforms because it's "easier", you win by carefully considering the people who actually will be using your software and the circumstances under which your application will run.

Deimorz 9y ago

> VS Code is an Electron-based application and it runs beautifully, with much less RAM/CPU hoarding than Slack. Except for that time when it was constantly using 13% CPU to display the blinking cursor: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/22900 https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/22900

chillee 9y ago
To be clear, that was a bug with chrome: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13941293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13941293