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What is it about native ui technology that you think is better than web tech? In my experience, the singular advantage of native tech is performance. Am I missi

What is it about native ui technology that you think is better than web tech? In my experience, the singular advantage of native tech is performance. Am I missing something?

woah 8y ago
Lots of times the people on HN advocating for native ui toolkits just have fond memories of a form builder on Windows 95 when you didn't have to worry about all these different screen sizes and stuff.
- mirkules 8y ago
  And yet not a single valid reason is given. "Because it's the old way of doing things" is completely inadequate as a technical reason to not use a technology.
  - BjoernKW 8y ago
    Having to worry about all these different screen sizes, devices, browsers and OS is a completely valid reason for not using a Windows 95 era form builder anymore.
    - deaddodo 8y ago
      As pointed out in other responses, pretty much every native kit nowadays offers sizing. Hell, it was one of the selling points for GTK+ back in 1998. What desktop apps are people using today that still have static sizes (outside of dialog/info boxes)?
    - ehnto 8y ago
      No one is talking about using form builders instead of react. They are talking about using modern, competent application frameworks that power some of the most powerful applications in use today. Almost everything in the web stack is an adaptation of a native technology.
      - BjoernKW 8y ago
        The basic metaphors are still the same because we're still using mouses on the desktop. With mobile devices these metaphors break down fairly quickly, though. HTML-based applications however also introduced a number of new metaphors and patterns such as the page paradigm that, while originally reminiscent of printed pages, is different from anything both in the physical world and within native desktop applications. Typography and information hierarchy are other aspects that usually can't be implemented as easily or as flexibly with native UI kits as with HTML-based approaches.
- stiGGG 8y ago
  Nowadays you can design responsive UIs with Interface Builder or the Android Studio equivalent with joy.
- royjacobs 8y ago
  Can you qualify this "lots of times" claim?
kitsunesoba 8y ago
Native UI gives you things like decent accessibility support and conformance to platform conventions for free, as well as automatic support for new system features like the dark mode being added in macOS Mojave. Other than that, it’s just one less thing you have to bundle when distributing your app — especially if you opt to use the local JS engine instead of V8. A JS desktop app written with something like Vue Native and system JS will be a great deal more lightweight than its electron equivalent.
tmd83 8y ago
I would say taking 1/10th or 1/100th of resource is a pretty damn big advantage even if that's just one advantage. Modern browsers are probably the most inefficient mainstream computer technology ever regardless of how useful it might have been.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Ironically, web browsers themselves are extremely optimized. They are one of the most efficient pieces of software out there. It takes actual work to screw all that up and turn it into the molasses that is modern web. Careers are built out of that work.
ehnto 8y ago
It's not constantly churning and it has matured over many years. Those are genuine benefits. I am not a fuddy duddy holding onto old memories, I am a long term web developer watching people try to shoehorn the churning spaghetti mess of dependencies and tooling that is the javascript ecosystem back into native platforms that have dedicated clean frameworks already. It has gotten better of course, but the only reason we have so much engineering capital in Javascript is because it runs everywhere on the web. If everyone using typescript and ES6 transpilers could have just used a better language 10 years ago they would have. It seems backwards to go from web tech to native, because native has always had numerous advantages as a platform over the web. Everything we have in the javascript ecosystem is just us saying "man I wish we could do this thing the non-web platforms can do already"

What is it about native ui technology that you think is better than web tech? In my experience, the singular advantage of native tech is performance. Am I missing something?

woah 8y ago

Lots of times the people on HN advocating for native ui toolkits just have fond memories of a form builder on Windows 95 when you didn't have to worry about all these different screen sizes and stuff.

mirkules 8y ago
And yet not a single valid reason is given. "Because it's the old way of doing things" is completely inadequate as a technical reason to not use a technology.
- BjoernKW 8y ago
  Having to worry about all these different screen sizes, devices, browsers and OS is a completely valid reason for not using a Windows 95 era form builder anymore.
  - deaddodo 8y ago
    As pointed out in other responses, pretty much every native kit nowadays offers sizing. Hell, it was one of the selling points for GTK+ back in 1998. What desktop apps are people using today that still have static sizes (outside of dialog/info boxes)?
  - ehnto 8y ago
    No one is talking about using form builders instead of react. They are talking about using modern, competent application frameworks that power some of the most powerful applications in use today. Almost everything in the web stack is an adaptation of a native technology.
    - BjoernKW 8y ago
      The basic metaphors are still the same because we're still using mouses on the desktop. With mobile devices these metaphors break down fairly quickly, though. HTML-based applications however also introduced a number of new metaphors and patterns such as the page paradigm that, while originally reminiscent of printed pages, is different from anything both in the physical world and within native desktop applications. Typography and information hierarchy are other aspects that usually can't be implemented as easily or as flexibly with native UI kits as with HTML-based approaches.
stiGGG 8y ago
Nowadays you can design responsive UIs with Interface Builder or the Android Studio equivalent with joy.
royjacobs 8y ago
Can you qualify this "lots of times" claim?

kitsunesoba 8y ago

Native UI gives you things like decent accessibility support and conformance to platform conventions for free, as well as automatic support for new system features like the dark mode being added in macOS Mojave. Other than that, it’s just one less thing you have to bundle when distributing your app — especially if you opt to use the local JS engine instead of V8. A JS desktop app written with something like Vue Native and system JS will be a great deal more lightweight than its electron equivalent.

tmd83 8y ago

I would say taking 1/10th or 1/100th of resource is a pretty damn big advantage even if that's just one advantage. Modern browsers are probably the most inefficient mainstream computer technology ever regardless of how useful it might have been.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Ironically, web browsers themselves are extremely optimized. They are one of the most efficient pieces of software out there. It takes actual work to screw all that up and turn it into the molasses that is modern web. Careers are built out of that work.

ehnto 8y ago

It's not constantly churning and it has matured over many years. Those are genuine benefits. I am not a fuddy duddy holding onto old memories, I am a long term web developer watching people try to shoehorn the churning spaghetti mess of dependencies and tooling that is the javascript ecosystem back into native platforms that have dedicated clean frameworks already. It has gotten better of course, but the only reason we have so much engineering capital in Javascript is because it runs everywhere on the web. If everyone using typescript and ES6 transpilers could have just used a better language 10 years ago they would have. It seems backwards to go from web tech to native, because native has always had numerous advantages as a platform over the web. Everything we have in the javascript ecosystem is just us saying "man I wish we could do this thing the non-web platforms can do already"