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Christ, Electron would be truly terrible for mobile apps. All the excuses people have for its bloat ("we all have tons of RAM anyway!", "storage space is cheap

Christ, Electron would be truly terrible for mobile apps. All the excuses people have for its bloat ("we all have tons of RAM anyway!", "storage space is cheap!", etc) evaporate when you're running on an ARM processor with maybe 2GB of RAM and 32 to 64GB of onboard storage.

berti 8y ago
Well, those excuses are garbage everywhere. :/ All the extra electricity burned around the world would easily pay for more highly skilled devs to write a native application (source: plucked from thin air ;) ).
- pnloyd 8y ago
  I'll admit making desktop applications in electron seems just as crazy to me as it does many others, but.. after using Vscode I've questioned that there must be something to it. Vscode has pretty great performance and is a serious pleasure to use with the right customizations. Should some of that success be credited to electron? (I'm just asking, not implying)
  - berti 8y ago
    I've been using it a bit at work.. The thing that stops me fully adopting it is how long it takes to start, and then it's very laggy for the first few seconds after that. It is a very nice editor once it's running though for sure!
  - filleduchaos 8y ago
    VSCode's success is due to the team that builds it using Electron as a tool, not as a crutch.
notamy 8y ago
> 32 to 64GB of onboard storage. If only. Probably a lot closer to 4-16GB for a lot of Android phones.
- solarkraft 8y ago
  That hopefully motivates at least some developers not to ship 500mb apps.
- filleduchaos 8y ago
  Thankfully even the shitty low-end phones I see these days have 8GB ROM
  - wjoe 8y ago
    Of which 7GB is taken up by the OS and system apps. I was kinda exaggerating, then I checked my phone and there's actually 15GB used by the OS.
- cimmanom 8y ago
  For a brand new phone. If everyone around you is using a phone that's less than 2 years old and purchased brand new, then you're living in a bubble. Same issue with web apps that run just great on the developer's 9 month old iMac over a symmetrical 100/100 connection vs the typical family's 5 year old chromebook (or the 8 year old Dell at the office) and 10/768 that's also supporting a Netflix stream.
WA 8y ago
Electron for mobile is called Cordova and has been around for a long time.
- thelastidiot 8y ago
  Capacitor is the new Cordova. Check it out.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
    What's the advantage of Capacitor over Cordova?
- filleduchaos 8y ago
  Cordova is not Electron for mobile. Calling it that is a fundamental misunderstanding of how both work. One depends on the OS to provide its built-in Webview/UIWebview. The other packages an entire damn browser with each app.
  - basch 8y ago
    >browser with each app. browser and web server?
- homakov 8y ago
  Requires special modules, you can't just take random npm module e.g. sequelize. Deal breaker for me.

berti 8y ago

Well, those excuses are garbage everywhere. :/ All the extra electricity burned around the world would easily pay for more highly skilled devs to write a native application (source: plucked from thin air ;) ).

pnloyd 8y ago
I'll admit making desktop applications in electron seems just as crazy to me as it does many others, but.. after using Vscode I've questioned that there must be something to it. Vscode has pretty great performance and is a serious pleasure to use with the right customizations. Should some of that success be credited to electron? (I'm just asking, not implying)
- berti 8y ago
  I've been using it a bit at work.. The thing that stops me fully adopting it is how long it takes to start, and then it's very laggy for the first few seconds after that. It is a very nice editor once it's running though for sure!
- filleduchaos 8y ago
  VSCode's success is due to the team that builds it using Electron as a tool, not as a crutch.

notamy 8y ago

> 32 to 64GB of onboard storage. If only. Probably a lot closer to 4-16GB for a lot of Android phones.

solarkraft 8y ago
That hopefully motivates at least some developers not to ship 500mb apps.
filleduchaos 8y ago
Thankfully even the shitty low-end phones I see these days have 8GB ROM
- wjoe 8y ago
  Of which 7GB is taken up by the OS and system apps. I was kinda exaggerating, then I checked my phone and there's actually 15GB used by the OS.
cimmanom 8y ago
For a brand new phone. If everyone around you is using a phone that's less than 2 years old and purchased brand new, then you're living in a bubble. Same issue with web apps that run just great on the developer's 9 month old iMac over a symmetrical 100/100 connection vs the typical family's 5 year old chromebook (or the 8 year old Dell at the office) and 10/768 that's also supporting a Netflix stream.

WA 8y ago

Electron for mobile is called Cordova and has been around for a long time.

thelastidiot 8y ago
Capacitor is the new Cordova. Check it out.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  What's the advantage of Capacitor over Cordova?
filleduchaos 8y ago
Cordova is not Electron for mobile. Calling it that is a fundamental misunderstanding of how both work. One depends on the OS to provide its built-in Webview/UIWebview. The other packages an entire damn browser with each app.
- basch 8y ago
  >browser with each app. browser and web server?
homakov 8y ago
Requires special modules, you can't just take random npm module e.g. sequelize. Deal breaker for me.