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Desktop Slack runs on Electron, no? Which essentially lets web developers develop a "native-ish" cross-platform app, without learning a whole new platform. Th
by pseudocook 8y ago
Desktop Slack runs on Electron, no? Which essentially lets web developers develop a "native-ish" cross-platform app, without learning a whole new platform.
There is a long, long history of attempts to make good, cross-platform, native apps. In the late 1990s there was a company called Visix that had such a library that worked on Windows and Unix. There have been Windows implementations of Motif/XWindows. There was of course Java/JWT. These days there is Qt. None of these seem to have really caught fire.
edit: I wrote Mac but I meant Unix
- peterwwillis 8y agoYeah, because cross-platform is a PITA. The reason web apps are popular is they're thin-terminals. You write your business logic on your mainframe/terminal server (linux vps) and the web app just handles the user interface. You maintain less portable code, deployment and upgrade is easier, and it simplifies the user experience a bit. The downside being network issues and supporting the server.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoI wish that was the case. Web developers nowadays try to push as much code as they can out into the browser, to be run client-side.
- user5994461 8y agoQt and Java can do cross platform software, however it's not possible to make a UI that's usable on desktop, tablet and mobile. You will end up creating separate apps. Qt is actually really impressive in my opinion, it's possible to recompile a desktop software for mobile, sometimes without any code change at all.