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"It feels like devs now want to write apps without spending any real effort on them." I think what people are fed up with, is to spend effort learning the "met

by bsaul 9y ago

"It feels like devs now want to write apps without spending any real effort on them." I think what people are fed up with, is to spend effort learning the "method du jour" of putting a button on a screen and updating the view on a click. This is pretty much a solved problem, and has been since MVC was invented in the 70s (not saying it's perfect, but it does the job). So there should be an easy an portable way of doing it for decades now. QT seems to be the kind of framework, but it's C++ so i won't qualify it as "easy".

cm2187 9y ago
It's even worse than that. It makes apps expensive and slower to develop across platforms, makes different version more complicated to maintain and keep in sync, creates more attack surface, etc. And even from a non technical point of view, there is a consistency of experience across platforms point of view. There are very good reasons to have fully cross platform apps that you develop only once. And in general, I don't think developers are being lazy by going for higher level languages like java, c# or python. Ease of use has a lot of value, particularly if the underlying problem you are trying to solve isn't simple. The last thing is forward compatibility. If I write an objective-c app, it will only be compatible with apple's platform. Say a new kind of platform appears that takes a significant market share (AR?), there is a lot of value in your app being compatible with this platform without needing even to recompile it, just because the cross platform framework you use will be ported to that platform.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  I rather have a portable application that takes advantage of the best features on each platform that it runs, than the minimum common denomitor that is the web. Ergo developers taking the easy route to the expense of user's overall UI/UX. Thankfully all web based mobile OSes bombed so far.
  - cm2187 9y ago
    I totally agree that html+javascript isn't a good answer to cross platform (for the reasons you mention, and because of javascript's own merits). But the ability to develop an app once and run it on multiple platforms is long overdue. And any effort in that direction is welcome. Having to learn 10 different languages and UI frameworks isn't a solution.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      It is only an issue for those that are Language X Developer. As consultant and polyglot developer, using C++ and eventually something else for the view isn't a problem at all. And it doesn't have to be C++, there are other portable native languages to choose from. Also web developers don't have any issue changing frameworks or languages that compile into JavaScript, almost every month.
  - bsaul 9y ago
    that was my position for the last 7 years about hybrid vs native on mobile. but with the recent slowdown on new features on mobile, i'd say even the common denominator is probably largely sufficient for 99% of the apps.
- j_s 9y ago
  > _It_ makes apps expensive and slower to develop across platforms Can you clarify specifically what you mean by _It_ there? Maybe (working backwards up the comment chain...) C++, Qt, MVC, "writing apps without spending any real effort", duplicating "applications across multiple OS and hardware architectures" (my vote for most likely), Xamarin.Forms, "easy to use portable desktop application framework", or something else?
jcelerier 9y ago
> QT seems to be the kind of framework, but it's C++ so i won't qualify it as "easy". http://qmlbook.github.io/en/ch04/index.html http://qmlbook.github.io/en/ch04/index.html it's really easy
rpeden 9y ago
If you use Qt and QML, you can write most (or all) of your application using JavaScript. I was experimenting a few weeks back, and was able to put together a Hacker News reader app using only JavaScript and QML. Granted, it was a fairly simple app; but once I knew what I was doing, the QML/JS combo didn't feel any slower to develop with than the React-based web stack I'm familiar with.
ThrowawayR2 9y ago
> I think what people are fed up with, is to spend effort learning the "method du jour" of putting a button on a screen and updating the view on a click. The bajillion constantly changing web frameworks says that people are perfectly delighted to spend the effort to learn the "method du jour" to do those things.

by bsaul 9y ago

cm2187 9y ago

It's even worse than that. It makes apps expensive and slower to develop across platforms, makes different version more complicated to maintain and keep in sync, creates more attack surface, etc. And even from a non technical point of view, there is a consistency of experience across platforms point of view. There are very good reasons to have fully cross platform apps that you develop only once. And in general, I don't think developers are being lazy by going for higher level languages like java, c# or python. Ease of use has a lot of value, particularly if the underlying problem you are trying to solve isn't simple. The last thing is forward compatibility. If I write an objective-c app, it will only be compatible with apple's platform. Say a new kind of platform appears that takes a significant market share (AR?), there is a lot of value in your app being compatible with this platform without needing even to recompile it, just because the cross platform framework you use will be ported to that platform.

pjmlp 9y ago
I rather have a portable application that takes advantage of the best features on each platform that it runs, than the minimum common denomitor that is the web. Ergo developers taking the easy route to the expense of user's overall UI/UX. Thankfully all web based mobile OSes bombed so far.
- cm2187 9y ago
  I totally agree that html+javascript isn't a good answer to cross platform (for the reasons you mention, and because of javascript's own merits). But the ability to develop an app once and run it on multiple platforms is long overdue. And any effort in that direction is welcome. Having to learn 10 different languages and UI frameworks isn't a solution.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    It is only an issue for those that are Language X Developer. As consultant and polyglot developer, using C++ and eventually something else for the view isn't a problem at all. And it doesn't have to be C++, there are other portable native languages to choose from. Also web developers don't have any issue changing frameworks or languages that compile into JavaScript, almost every month.
- bsaul 9y ago
  that was my position for the last 7 years about hybrid vs native on mobile. but with the recent slowdown on new features on mobile, i'd say even the common denominator is probably largely sufficient for 99% of the apps.
j_s 9y ago
> _It_ makes apps expensive and slower to develop across platforms Can you clarify specifically what you mean by _It_ there? Maybe (working backwards up the comment chain...) C++, Qt, MVC, "writing apps without spending any real effort", duplicating "applications across multiple OS and hardware architectures" (my vote for most likely), Xamarin.Forms, "easy to use portable desktop application framework", or something else?

jcelerier 9y ago

> QT seems to be the kind of framework, but it's C++ so i won't qualify it as "easy". http://qmlbook.github.io/en/ch04/index.html http://qmlbook.github.io/en/ch04/index.html it's really easy

rpeden 9y ago

If you use Qt and QML, you can write most (or all) of your application using JavaScript. I was experimenting a few weeks back, and was able to put together a Hacker News reader app using only JavaScript and QML. Granted, it was a fairly simple app; but once I knew what I was doing, the QML/JS combo didn't feel any slower to develop with than the React-based web stack I'm familiar with.

ThrowawayR2 9y ago

> I think what people are fed up with, is to spend effort learning the "method du jour" of putting a button on a screen and updating the view on a click. The bajillion constantly changing web frameworks says that people are perfectly delighted to spend the effort to learn the "method du jour" to do those things.