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The web-based implementation means you only have one codebase for both Slack in the browser and Slack in Electron. So adding Qt in addition to their browser cli

The web-based implementation means you only have one codebase for both Slack in the browser and Slack in Electron. So adding Qt in addition to their browser client means they have two disparate clients instead of one client (plus Electron glue code).

snuxoll 9y ago
And? I am absolutely tired of companies taking a giant dump on the experience of desktop applications. If you're going to make a desktop app make a damned desktop app, stop making everybody accept a terrible electron app because "oh no, I have to do extra work" - give me a break. How many companies still maintain native iOS and Android apps? Lots. Qt even feels (mostly) native on GNOME desktops these days, if you can't afford to develop a 100% native app for Win, Linux and Mac then at least use a real toolkit that gets you 80% of the way there whereas Electron gets you 0%.
- BukhariH 9y ago
  Honestly, I don't think you can point to any actual business reason for a native client. Slack makes majority of their revenue from large organisations buying thousands of seats in one go and a native desktop client is sadly not a huge selling point for the sales team. At the end of the day Slack has to optimize for growth and there's a huge list of features that will bring more ROI than native clients which will require trebling the size of the code base.
  - snuxoll 9y ago
    Fine, if they don't have any business reason for a native client they should just can the slack desktop app because it provides 0 benefits over the web app then. If you're going to do something do it right or don't do it at all.
    - johannes1234321 9y ago
      The desktop app allows them to Mark the checkbox of having a "native" app when selling ... And in my environment quite a few folks prefer the election app over the browser. I don't know why, though.
      - always_good 9y ago
        I prefer a dedicate app because I can alt-tab through a relatively limited number of apps compared to the dozens of tabs I may have open. For example, the desktop app will show notification count in the dock. Imagine if all of your apps had a browser version and you could always pick between a tabbed version vs standalone version. To use the tabbed version of everything would be like using an AOL app back in those days where you alt-tab to the AOL virtual window and then find the app you want within it while wishing you could just use the OS' window manager system.
        johannes1234321 9y ago
        I simply have it in a browser window in a specific part on my desktop which I manage via i3wm. But, well, everybody has their preferences.
  - dman 9y ago
    Killing battery life of their users isnt a business reason?
    - arvinsim 9y ago
      If doesn't affect their bottomline, then why will they bother?
      - dman 9y ago
        Customers are fickle beasts, they mutter and keep on using a product until they dont.
        gruez 9y ago
        yet there's no slack competitor that has "better battery life" or "native apps" as one of its selling points.
        cyphar 9y ago
        Matrix has native clients[1], as well as a weechat plugin. [1]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/quaternion.html https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/quaternion.html
        salvar 9y ago
        So rewriting all their clients would be a more sensible approach to user retention compared to keeping the current Electron client that most users seem quite happy with?
        dman 9y ago
        Nokia had users who were happy with the solid phones they were building.
        salvar 9y ago
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    The profit from "large organisations buying thousands of seats in one go" can surely pay a couple of devs to write native apps.
- clintonb 9y ago
  I keep hearing bad things about Electron, and have only now bothered to look it up. As a user of Slack, and whatever other applications I happen to use that are based on Electron, I don't care that the application isn't native. Electron is "good enough." I would imagine that 99% of users feel the same way. Feel free to articulate your issues with such apps. So far, no one has really done that in the various comments online disparaging Electron.
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    > Feel free to articulate your issues with such apps. So far, no one has really done that in the various comments online disparaging Electron. What? Every time Electron comes up, people bemoan its battery and RAM usage.
  - tspike 9y ago
    It's slow. It kills your battery. It disregards standard platform idioms.
s73v3r_ 9y ago
So what? You're saying that like it's this terrible thing. It's not. Especially because, as has been shown, Electron apps are extremely sorely lacking in things like accessibility.
- bananaboy 9y ago
  Yeah, but unfortunately businesses prefer to sacrifice user experience for developer convenience and expediency. I wish it weren't true. There are a couple of cases where you can avoid that in the text editor and source control space: Sublime Text is cross-platform and native, and so is SourceTree (although it's become quite buggy). So just avoid GitKraken, GitHub Desktop, VS Code, Atom.
- panopticon 9y ago
  > You're saying that like it's this terrible thing. I made no such claim. I was just providing a legitimate business reason for going the Electron route.

snuxoll 9y ago

And? I am absolutely tired of companies taking a giant dump on the experience of desktop applications. If you're going to make a desktop app make a damned desktop app, stop making everybody accept a terrible electron app because "oh no, I have to do extra work" - give me a break. How many companies still maintain native iOS and Android apps? Lots. Qt even feels (mostly) native on GNOME desktops these days, if you can't afford to develop a 100% native app for Win, Linux and Mac then at least use a real toolkit that gets you 80% of the way there whereas Electron gets you 0%.

BukhariH 9y ago
Honestly, I don't think you can point to any actual business reason for a native client. Slack makes majority of their revenue from large organisations buying thousands of seats in one go and a native desktop client is sadly not a huge selling point for the sales team. At the end of the day Slack has to optimize for growth and there's a huge list of features that will bring more ROI than native clients which will require trebling the size of the code base.
- snuxoll 9y ago
  Fine, if they don't have any business reason for a native client they should just can the slack desktop app because it provides 0 benefits over the web app then. If you're going to do something do it right or don't do it at all.
  - johannes1234321 9y ago
    The desktop app allows them to Mark the checkbox of having a "native" app when selling ... And in my environment quite a few folks prefer the election app over the browser. I don't know why, though.
    - always_good 9y ago
      I prefer a dedicate app because I can alt-tab through a relatively limited number of apps compared to the dozens of tabs I may have open. For example, the desktop app will show notification count in the dock. Imagine if all of your apps had a browser version and you could always pick between a tabbed version vs standalone version. To use the tabbed version of everything would be like using an AOL app back in those days where you alt-tab to the AOL virtual window and then find the app you want within it while wishing you could just use the OS' window manager system.
      - johannes1234321 9y ago
        I simply have it in a browser window in a specific part on my desktop which I manage via i3wm. But, well, everybody has their preferences.
- dman 9y ago
  Killing battery life of their users isnt a business reason?
  - arvinsim 9y ago
    If doesn't affect their bottomline, then why will they bother?
    - dman 9y ago
      Customers are fickle beasts, they mutter and keep on using a product until they dont.
      - gruez 9y ago
        yet there's no slack competitor that has "better battery life" or "native apps" as one of its selling points.
        cyphar 9y ago
        Matrix has native clients[1], as well as a weechat plugin. [1]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/quaternion.html https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/quaternion.html
      - salvar 9y ago
        So rewriting all their clients would be a more sensible approach to user retention compared to keeping the current Electron client that most users seem quite happy with?
        dman 9y ago
        Nokia had users who were happy with the solid phones they were building.
        salvar 9y ago
- pjmlp 9y ago
  The profit from "large organisations buying thousands of seats in one go" can surely pay a couple of devs to write native apps.
clintonb 9y ago
I keep hearing bad things about Electron, and have only now bothered to look it up. As a user of Slack, and whatever other applications I happen to use that are based on Electron, I don't care that the application isn't native. Electron is "good enough." I would imagine that 99% of users feel the same way. Feel free to articulate your issues with such apps. So far, no one has really done that in the various comments online disparaging Electron.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > Feel free to articulate your issues with such apps. So far, no one has really done that in the various comments online disparaging Electron. What? Every time Electron comes up, people bemoan its battery and RAM usage.
- tspike 9y ago
  It's slow. It kills your battery. It disregards standard platform idioms.

s73v3r_ 9y ago

So what? You're saying that like it's this terrible thing. It's not. Especially because, as has been shown, Electron apps are extremely sorely lacking in things like accessibility.

bananaboy 9y ago
Yeah, but unfortunately businesses prefer to sacrifice user experience for developer convenience and expediency. I wish it weren't true. There are a couple of cases where you can avoid that in the text editor and source control space: Sublime Text is cross-platform and native, and so is SourceTree (although it's become quite buggy). So just avoid GitKraken, GitHub Desktop, VS Code, Atom.
panopticon 9y ago
> You're saying that like it's this terrible thing. I made no such claim. I was just providing a legitimate business reason for going the Electron route.