10 ms·

I find it crazy that everyone is harping on Electron instead of the cool features that this clearly has that most clients do not. Demo looked pretty polished du

I find it crazy that everyone is harping on Electron instead of the cool features that this clearly has that most clients do not. Demo looked pretty polished dude. Don't let the typical HN crowd rain on your parade. The fact that you posted an actual product out to the public is more than most can say. Also: If you can't spare Max 300MB ram and you are complaining on HN wtf computer do you use?

Can_Not 8y ago
What kind of computer an I using? I'm using a work computer that needs RAM for the actual work I do. If one auxiliary program used 300MB that would not be a big deal. But we're talking about electron MVP after electron MVP after electron MVP endlessly. Memory hogging electron MVP's are being released at 100x the speed of my computer's RAM growth. I bought a high RAM computer because I already need it for work, not because I want to fill it with Electron MVPs.
CryoLogic 8y ago
Half of Hackernews is discussion about six figure tech salaries, the other half is complaints about 300mb (aka ~$2) ram being to expensive for an app. https://www.anandtech.com/show/9864/price-of-ddr4-memory-drops-nearly-40-in-six-months-and-will-keep-declining https://www.anandtech.com/show/9864/price-of-ddr4-memory-dro...
- gruez 8y ago
  and what about people who use electron apps that aren't silicon valley programmers?
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    They can't properly voice their complaints because they don't know why their software is terrible; just that it is terrible.
- Barraketh 8y ago
  Yup, but we're all running these apps on laptops, which have a fixed amount of RAM that is sometimes impossible to increase (looking at you, Apple)
- allenz 8y ago
  To be fair, RAM is much more expensive to upgrade on MacBooks and other premium laptops.
- majewsky 8y ago
  There are, in fact, people who are not SV software developers.
- dracodoc 8y ago
  What if all your RAM slots are taken, or your laptop cannot upgrade RAM at all?
- reiichiroh 8y ago
  This is from 2015. RAM prices remain artificially high.
- spookthesunset 8y ago
  > Half of Hackernews is discussion about six figure tech salaries, the other half is complaints about 300mb (aka ~$2) ram being to expensive for an app. Slashdot got like this eventually. Slashdot was tech site full of luddites complaining about anything new. Worse, slashdot stopped becoming relevant. When the top comment on an article about increased hard drive space was "why does all this stuff take so much space? bloat!! lazy developers!!!".... it's pretty lame. 300mb of ram is nothing. Your OS will swap the software out when you aren't using it and it will be no big deal. People need to stop micromanaging their computer and go do more productive things with their time....
  - Avamander 8y ago
    > People need to stop micromanaging their computer You're so wrong. This hogging literally causes micromanagement. I have to start closing browser tabs and maybe at some point my IDE or a few open files so that just Slack or Discord or some other piece of horrendously bloated software could hog up another half a gigabyte of RAM. When Eight gigabytes stop being enough because of some chat applications it's not okay. Calling people that think software can actually use resources meaningfully "luddites" is counterproductive and damaging to the entire PC ecosystem, RAM and disk space are limited resources on most PCs and people do not want and should not have to spend more just to run a few chat applications.
  - Mithaldu 8y ago
    > Your OS will swap the software out when you aren't using it Wrong, since Electron apps NEVER sit still.
tomc1985 8y ago
My compute resources are not an all-you-can-eat buffet. I'm sick of inconsiderate developers writing software in wasteful frameworks that waste my electricity and time. You can make pretty x-platform apps in JavaFX, QT Quick, GTK, hell even Lazarus, and they don't eat CPU and memory like Electron does. It is a shame that nearly every app released in the latter half of this decade is just wasteful Electron garbage. Don't forget your 300+mb needs to sit along side Slack's 300mb, Discord's 300mb, and so on... fuck even my Crashplan Backup client eats up three processes and another 300mb. It's inconsiderate as hell.
- SnowingXIV 8y ago
  While I somewhat agree, no one is forcing you to use this software and this holier than thou attitude is not constructive. You're free to use gnus, notmuch, mu4e, whatever million other variants if you're so concerned about your "precious" resources. This electron app that's been built has some neat features that a lot of people might find useful, like that search seems pretty cool.
- eridius 8y ago
  300mb? You're lucky. Slack is taking up 763mb for me right now, and it's not uncommon to see it cross the 1GB threshold.
- markbnj 8y ago
  Pretty harsh lol. If you don't like electron apps then don't run them. It's hard to describe the actions of developers who use those frameworks as "inconsiderate" when they are a) providing the fruit of their labors for free; and b) not shoving it down your throat.
  - tomc1985 8y ago
    Electron is becoming more difficult to avoid
    - majewsky 8y ago
      Exactly. Can't wait for my boss's reaction when I tell him I'm leaving Slack Enterprise.
muszc-master 8y ago
Thanks for your feedback!
gascan 8y ago
MS Outlook, the heavyweight in the ring with every conceivable feature, has been running on my machine for days and is currently using 168MB.
- jrochkind1 8y ago
  every conceivable feature, a UI that leaves me with no idea how to use any of them.
  - khedoros1 8y ago
    I have no problems with the UI. Then again, I've been using versions for a decade.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
It's not about WTF computer do you use, it's about being wasteful. I've been using Outlook and Skype for Business on my machine all day and they're using less than 160MB together. Wastefulness is not cool.
kashyapc 8y ago
I see where you are coming from. My main work laptop has 24GB (recently refreshed; the previous one had 16GB), so I can trivially spare 300MB, if I want. That said ... I work on open source Linux virtualization (KVM-based), and I fiercely guard my laptop's memory. Why? Allow me to tell my "corner case" scenario. I have a couple of development virtual machines (VMs), and build containers running on my laptop. They help me with a range of tasks (some are memory intensive). Further, I configure nested virtualization, which lets me setup two level-1 guests (A and B), and inturn run a level-2 guest (C) in either of them. Now I can test live migration of VM C between A and B. So I really try my best to stay away from memory-hogging applications. That's one of the reasons why 4-ish years ago I ditched Thunderbird, which was hogging memory, and switched to the venerable mutt e-mail client. (Also ditched HexChat for irssi.) FWIW, switching to mutt was one of the best decisions I made for my productivity -- I spend a lot of time wrangling high-volume technical mailing lists; it's unalloyed joy to use mutt on a daily basis (especially if you deal with e-mail based patch workflow). Granted, it might be a niche scenario. I just wanted to call out that there are damn good reasons to conserve memory.
- z3t4 8y ago
  Have you considered getting a dedicated server for this !?
s73v3r_ 8y ago
For this, for Slack, for VS Code, for half a dozen other Electron apps because devs simply are not willing to take the time and effort to learn other languages.

Can_Not 8y ago

What kind of computer an I using? I'm using a work computer that needs RAM for the actual work I do. If one auxiliary program used 300MB that would not be a big deal. But we're talking about electron MVP after electron MVP after electron MVP endlessly. Memory hogging electron MVP's are being released at 100x the speed of my computer's RAM growth. I bought a high RAM computer because I already need it for work, not because I want to fill it with Electron MVPs.

CryoLogic 8y ago

Half of Hackernews is discussion about six figure tech salaries, the other half is complaints about 300mb (aka ~$2) ram being to expensive for an app. https://www.anandtech.com/show/9864/price-of-ddr4-memory-drops-nearly-40-in-six-months-and-will-keep-declining https://www.anandtech.com/show/9864/price-of-ddr4-memory-dro...

gruez 8y ago
and what about people who use electron apps that aren't silicon valley programmers?
- saagarjha 8y ago
  They can't properly voice their complaints because they don't know why their software is terrible; just that it is terrible.
Barraketh 8y ago
Yup, but we're all running these apps on laptops, which have a fixed amount of RAM that is sometimes impossible to increase (looking at you, Apple)
allenz 8y ago
To be fair, RAM is much more expensive to upgrade on MacBooks and other premium laptops.
majewsky 8y ago
There are, in fact, people who are not SV software developers.
dracodoc 8y ago
What if all your RAM slots are taken, or your laptop cannot upgrade RAM at all?
reiichiroh 8y ago
This is from 2015. RAM prices remain artificially high.
spookthesunset 8y ago
> Half of Hackernews is discussion about six figure tech salaries, the other half is complaints about 300mb (aka ~$2) ram being to expensive for an app. Slashdot got like this eventually. Slashdot was tech site full of luddites complaining about anything new. Worse, slashdot stopped becoming relevant. When the top comment on an article about increased hard drive space was "why does all this stuff take so much space? bloat!! lazy developers!!!".... it's pretty lame. 300mb of ram is nothing. Your OS will swap the software out when you aren't using it and it will be no big deal. People need to stop micromanaging their computer and go do more productive things with their time....
- Avamander 8y ago
  > People need to stop micromanaging their computer You're so wrong. This hogging literally causes micromanagement. I have to start closing browser tabs and maybe at some point my IDE or a few open files so that just Slack or Discord or some other piece of horrendously bloated software could hog up another half a gigabyte of RAM. When Eight gigabytes stop being enough because of some chat applications it's not okay. Calling people that think software can actually use resources meaningfully "luddites" is counterproductive and damaging to the entire PC ecosystem, RAM and disk space are limited resources on most PCs and people do not want and should not have to spend more just to run a few chat applications.
- Mithaldu 8y ago
  > Your OS will swap the software out when you aren't using it Wrong, since Electron apps NEVER sit still.

tomc1985 8y ago

My compute resources are not an all-you-can-eat buffet. I'm sick of inconsiderate developers writing software in wasteful frameworks that waste my electricity and time. You can make pretty x-platform apps in JavaFX, QT Quick, GTK, hell even Lazarus, and they don't eat CPU and memory like Electron does. It is a shame that nearly every app released in the latter half of this decade is just wasteful Electron garbage. Don't forget your 300+mb needs to sit along side Slack's 300mb, Discord's 300mb, and so on... fuck even my Crashplan Backup client eats up three processes and another 300mb. It's inconsiderate as hell.

SnowingXIV 8y ago
While I somewhat agree, no one is forcing you to use this software and this holier than thou attitude is not constructive. You're free to use gnus, notmuch, mu4e, whatever million other variants if you're so concerned about your "precious" resources. This electron app that's been built has some neat features that a lot of people might find useful, like that search seems pretty cool.
eridius 8y ago
300mb? You're lucky. Slack is taking up 763mb for me right now, and it's not uncommon to see it cross the 1GB threshold.
markbnj 8y ago
Pretty harsh lol. If you don't like electron apps then don't run them. It's hard to describe the actions of developers who use those frameworks as "inconsiderate" when they are a) providing the fruit of their labors for free; and b) not shoving it down your throat.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  Electron is becoming more difficult to avoid
  - majewsky 8y ago
    Exactly. Can't wait for my boss's reaction when I tell him I'm leaving Slack Enterprise.

muszc-master 8y ago

Thanks for your feedback!

gascan 8y ago

MS Outlook, the heavyweight in the ring with every conceivable feature, has been running on my machine for days and is currently using 168MB.

jrochkind1 8y ago
every conceivable feature, a UI that leaves me with no idea how to use any of them.
- khedoros1 8y ago
  I have no problems with the UI. Then again, I've been using versions for a decade.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

It's not about WTF computer do you use, it's about being wasteful. I've been using Outlook and Skype for Business on my machine all day and they're using less than 160MB together. Wastefulness is not cool.

kashyapc 8y ago

I see where you are coming from. My main work laptop has 24GB (recently refreshed; the previous one had 16GB), so I can trivially spare 300MB, if I want. That said ... I work on open source Linux virtualization (KVM-based), and I fiercely guard my laptop's memory. Why? Allow me to tell my "corner case" scenario. I have a couple of development virtual machines (VMs), and build containers running on my laptop. They help me with a range of tasks (some are memory intensive). Further, I configure nested virtualization, which lets me setup two level-1 guests (A and B), and inturn run a level-2 guest (C) in either of them. Now I can test live migration of VM C between A and B. So I really try my best to stay away from memory-hogging applications. That's one of the reasons why 4-ish years ago I ditched Thunderbird, which was hogging memory, and switched to the venerable mutt e-mail client. (Also ditched HexChat for irssi.) FWIW, switching to mutt was one of the best decisions I made for my productivity -- I spend a lot of time wrangling high-volume technical mailing lists; it's unalloyed joy to use mutt on a daily basis (especially if you deal with e-mail based patch workflow). Granted, it might be a niche scenario. I just wanted to call out that there are damn good reasons to conserve memory.

z3t4 8y ago
Have you considered getting a dedicated server for this !?

s73v3r_ 8y ago

For this, for Slack, for VS Code, for half a dozen other Electron apps because devs simply are not willing to take the time and effort to learn other languages.