4 ms·
If the Electron app exists, there's a lot less incentive to write the native one.
by beojan 9y ago
If the Electron app exists, there's a lot less incentive to write the native one.
- mateuszf 9y agoIf the Electron app exists, often the alternative is no app at all.
- OberstKrueger 9y agoSee Slack. If Slack were still some plucky startup, I can understand it using Electron. But it's been around for a while now, and a more performant native application doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon.
- Aelius 9y agoLuckily Slack has the IRC and XMPP bridges. can't imagine any other protocols with a wealth of highly performant clients to choose from. Unlucky for me, my admins refuse to enable the bridges and also won't grant me an API key for use with the weechat slack plugin. I hate Slack so much. Slow and miserable and unconfigurable and just crashes at least once a month.
- detaro 9y agoSadly, Slack also happily breaks the protocols in their bridges, e.g. producing invalid IRC usernames. So even though our Slack has the bridge enabled, I can't login to it since it wants me to put a dot in my nick.
- laurent123456 9y agoSkype for a long time only had an outdated application on Linux. Now that MS converted it to Electron, it's available and regularly updated. The truth is, even for huge companies like Microsoft, the cost of doing a Linux-specific app is not worth it given the small user base, but with Electron they get this for free so they do it. This is even more true for resource-limited open source projects, as cross-platform gui-based ones are difficult to get right, but Electron makes that easier.
- karpodiem 9y agoNow I've heard it all - a company with a seven hundred billion dollar market cap can't afford it. Come on. They can absolutely afford to do native Windows / MacOS / Linux cross platform. They're lazy/don't want to.
- alsetmusic 9y ago> Now I've heard it all - a company with a seven hundred billion dollar market cap can't afford it. Come on. They can absolutely afford to do native Windows / MacOS / Linux cross platform. They're lazy/don't want to. That’s a straw man argument. The parent said that Linux development might not be worth the cost. They didn’t say anything about the ability to pay.
- v_lisivka 9y agoSo we, linux users, actively promoting alternatives for Skype, to increase cost of ignoring us. «Team, M$ killed Skype for linux, I cannot use it anymore, let switch to something else, like Slack.»
- gbersac 9y agoThey can do it but if it's not profitable, they won't. It's not being lazy, it's being smart in the capitalist sense.
- karpodiem 9y agoI'm fine with that, just call it like it is. This is what Microsoft truly thinks of developing a 1st class open-source solution - not worth their time because it's not profitable enough. So they'll give you a second class solution with the assumption you'd rather have that then nothing.
- RaleyField 9y agoThey can afford it. They can also afford to put a man on the moon, but it isn't necessarily financially reasonable for them to do so. Think of Microsoft as a collection of teams, each team can't afford to spend "Microsoft" money on its project unless its strategically important. The fact that we don't have native app probably indicates that Microsoft thinks Skype is past its peak of popularity. Thinking of many competing products I understand why.
- amedvednikov 9y agoI'm working on a native client for Slack, Skype, Twitter etc. It's only 90 KB (!) https://eul.im https://eul.im
- blackoil 9y agoIs it 90kb installer or complete app? Also what are using to build the interface?
- amedvednikov 9y agoIt's the complete app. Cocoa on macos, WinAPI on Windows, GTK on Linux.
- stephenr 9y agoIs this the one that uses OpenGL or something to render everything (ie nonnative text controls etc)?
- amedvednikov 9y agoNot any more. Now it uses native controls.
- stephenr 9y agoOh nice, I need to check this out then!
- mamcx 9y agoHow you do this? Probably some of us could guess, but maybe will help people that only know electron :)
- amedvednikov 9y agoCocoa on macOS, WinAPI on Windows, GTK on Linux.
- 9y ago