6 ms·

> 45-second video of Slack opening (surely the worst offender among modern apps I hate to defend Slack as it's far from snappy, but comparing it to a console a

by gav 8y ago

> 45-second video of Slack opening (surely the worst offender among modern apps I hate to defend Slack as it's far from snappy, but comparing it to a console app seems hardly fair. I wonder how much of it's slowness is due to network requests? I could make the argument that git is slow because when I clone a large repository it takes a while.

SomeHacker44 8y ago
I do not see how that comparison is unfair. Terminal IRC clients, for example, accomplish the same exact functionality as Slack in a curses UI in a vastly faster way.
- gav 8y ago
  But somehow there's all these people that want to use Slack over Irssi.
  - KirinDave 8y ago
    Probably because IRC is an outdated protocol with inferior features to Slack and very few good open source options for connecting. For example: * DCC is still unreliable. * There is no audio connection option, which is quite popular in 2018. * Channel history management is ad hoc * Authentication is done in band, in plain text. * "secured" channels rely on this bad authentication, and if they don't (perhaps electing to manage it themselves) network flaws can completely steal your channel. * IRC isn't even particularly open source, many servers and networks have private patches that are not shared publicly. IRC isn't better than slack. I agree with you that it's confusing why people suggest that it ought to be. Also, most IRC networks are controlled by entities even more inscrutable than Slack's executive team and board. I can go look up who runs slack, I cannot actually find good details on who runs any given IRC network. I have no idea what I'm dealing with or how they're using my data. I have no legal recourse if I do discover bad behavior, and I'm forced by the ossified protocol to keep using their insecure authentication mechanisms which make abuse trivial.
    - ethbro 8y ago
      > ... I cannot actually find good details on who runs any given IRC network. I have no idea what I'm dealing with or how they're using my data. I have no legal recourse if I do discover bad behavior... Ah, the good old days of the Internet. You make me so nostalgic.
      - KirinDave 8y ago
        Back when I was a kid this sounded romantic. Now I just know it means that folks spy on me for fun.
        ethbro 8y ago
        As opposed to the non-anonymous internet?
        KirinDave 8y ago
        Certainly I use a lot more software products by a lot more diverse sources that all have a lot more accountability to the consumer. This, at least, is a positive trend. One of the few good parts of the commerical software movement is more accountability and higher minimum standards for the consumer. I think that shows in trends in modern computer adoption.
- 0942v8653 8y ago
  Wouldn't say that IRC has the same exact functionality as Slack. But the Slack mobile app does, and it runs far better than the desktop version (starts up in 3 seconds on a low-powered device instead of 30 on a much faster machine).
  - EdiX 8y ago
    I've read this opinion a few times and at one point (before trying mobile slack) I believed it. Is this true for iPhone users maybe? I've used slack on mobile and I find it worse than the desktop version. It starts slightly faster (10 seconds vs. almost 20) but navigating through channels is bad (and slower) and threads are completely unusable. It also runs my device hot like nothing else. The faster startup speed isn't a big victory for me because it's still a factor of 10 away from what I would consider acceptable. The "best" interface for slack, IMHO, is the web version, provided that you are already using Chrome.
tonysdg 8y ago
This goes to the article's point about caching; a chat app -- of all programs -- should cache conversations for a fast boot up. Sure, _updating_ the conversations -- the "cloning" stage -- may take some time, but why should you have to wait for the network requests to complete before seeing your past conversations? The git equivalent would be if you had to wait for git to do a fetch/pull every time you ran "ls" on a git-controlled folder. It would be insane, and no one would use git (or any other version control).
- KirinDave 8y ago
  Don't get me wrong, Electron has a lot of issues. I think Slack should switch toolkits. But I don't see how we argue that a famously poorly implemented app is somehow indicative of the entire space of GUI apps and that a space equally fraught with UX issues is somehow obviously better. Especally when we have excellent examples like VS Code, which is cheerfully giving neovim and emacs a run for their money and displacing longtime contenders like sublime, because it's genuinely quite good and plenty fast enough for most folks.
  - npunt 8y ago
    Yeah this was my takeaway as well. Category error - author didn't like electron apps, and therefore wants to dump GUIs in favor of terminals (which would slowly become GUIs with his improvements).
  - madeofpalk 8y ago
    Slack's problems have zero to do with Electron.
    - KirinDave 8y ago
      I think maybe it's security problems have something to do with Electron. However, I agree Slack's got a lot of issues that are just bad implementation choices.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

by gav 8y ago

SomeHacker44 8y ago

I do not see how that comparison is unfair. Terminal IRC clients, for example, accomplish the same exact functionality as Slack in a curses UI in a vastly faster way.

gav 8y ago
But somehow there's all these people that want to use Slack over Irssi.
- KirinDave 8y ago
  Probably because IRC is an outdated protocol with inferior features to Slack and very few good open source options for connecting. For example: * DCC is still unreliable. * There is no audio connection option, which is quite popular in 2018. * Channel history management is ad hoc * Authentication is done in band, in plain text. * "secured" channels rely on this bad authentication, and if they don't (perhaps electing to manage it themselves) network flaws can completely steal your channel. * IRC isn't even particularly open source, many servers and networks have private patches that are not shared publicly. IRC isn't better than slack. I agree with you that it's confusing why people suggest that it ought to be. Also, most IRC networks are controlled by entities even more inscrutable than Slack's executive team and board. I can go look up who runs slack, I cannot actually find good details on who runs any given IRC network. I have no idea what I'm dealing with or how they're using my data. I have no legal recourse if I do discover bad behavior, and I'm forced by the ossified protocol to keep using their insecure authentication mechanisms which make abuse trivial.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    > ... I cannot actually find good details on who runs any given IRC network. I have no idea what I'm dealing with or how they're using my data. I have no legal recourse if I do discover bad behavior... Ah, the good old days of the Internet. You make me so nostalgic.
    - KirinDave 8y ago
      Back when I was a kid this sounded romantic. Now I just know it means that folks spy on me for fun.
      - ethbro 8y ago
        As opposed to the non-anonymous internet?
        KirinDave 8y ago
        Certainly I use a lot more software products by a lot more diverse sources that all have a lot more accountability to the consumer. This, at least, is a positive trend. One of the few good parts of the commerical software movement is more accountability and higher minimum standards for the consumer. I think that shows in trends in modern computer adoption.
0942v8653 8y ago
Wouldn't say that IRC has the same exact functionality as Slack. But the Slack mobile app does, and it runs far better than the desktop version (starts up in 3 seconds on a low-powered device instead of 30 on a much faster machine).
- EdiX 8y ago
  I've read this opinion a few times and at one point (before trying mobile slack) I believed it. Is this true for iPhone users maybe? I've used slack on mobile and I find it worse than the desktop version. It starts slightly faster (10 seconds vs. almost 20) but navigating through channels is bad (and slower) and threads are completely unusable. It also runs my device hot like nothing else. The faster startup speed isn't a big victory for me because it's still a factor of 10 away from what I would consider acceptable. The "best" interface for slack, IMHO, is the web version, provided that you are already using Chrome.

tonysdg 8y ago

This goes to the article's point about caching; a chat app -- of all programs -- should cache conversations for a fast boot up. Sure, _updating_ the conversations -- the "cloning" stage -- may take some time, but why should you have to wait for the network requests to complete before seeing your past conversations? The git equivalent would be if you had to wait for git to do a fetch/pull every time you ran "ls" on a git-controlled folder. It would be insane, and no one would use git (or any other version control).

KirinDave 8y ago
Don't get me wrong, Electron has a lot of issues. I think Slack should switch toolkits. But I don't see how we argue that a famously poorly implemented app is somehow indicative of the entire space of GUI apps and that a space equally fraught with UX issues is somehow obviously better. Especally when we have excellent examples like VS Code, which is cheerfully giving neovim and emacs a run for their money and displacing longtime contenders like sublime, because it's genuinely quite good and plenty fast enough for most folks.
- npunt 8y ago
  Yeah this was my takeaway as well. Category error - author didn't like electron apps, and therefore wants to dump GUIs in favor of terminals (which would slowly become GUIs with his improvements).
- madeofpalk 8y ago
  Slack's problems have zero to do with Electron.
  - KirinDave 8y ago
    I think maybe it's security problems have something to do with Electron. However, I agree Slack's got a lot of issues that are just bad implementation choices.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]