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And honestly, how hard can it be? Put a 5 man team on it and in a few months it'll be done and workable. Few million down the drain but your software is insanel

And honestly, how hard can it be? Put a 5 man team on it and in a few months it'll be done and workable. Few million down the drain but your software is insanely more useable. I guess that doesn't sell the service...

drb91 8y ago
No need! Everyone is already so happy with the electron version; why would they waste more money improving your experience?
- ihuman 8y ago
  Because not everyone is already happy with the electron version?
  - drb91 8y ago
    (I was sarcastic!)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
hvidgaard 8y ago
Lets assume well paid developers of $150.000 yearly, 5 man for 3 months is less than $187.500 is wages. Lets be generous and say we double that to account for other expenses. It's $375.000 for a feature that will be a reasonable sales argument.
- spyridonas 8y ago
  Let's throw these money and work hours to electron contribution! It will make every electron app faster
  - cmiles74 8y ago
    I think Google is already throwing enough money at Chromium for all of us (Electron runs on top of Chromium AFAICT). In my opinion, Google's expectation is that you run one instance of Chromium per machine. Electron wants to run one per application. Hence performance woes.
- mercer 8y ago
  Much as I usually try to understand the 'business end' of things, I have to say that I'm baffled that Slack hasn't done this yet. I rather like Slack, and have good reasons to use it (it's pretty central to Elixir's community, for one), but even on my relatively beefy MBP (2015) I actively avoid having the app open because it's a heavy Electron piece of shit. While of course I might be a bit of an outlier as a developer with a preference for 'lighter' applications (and comfortable with CLI stuff), surely I'm not that much of an outlier...
  - pluto9 8y ago
    I think it's typical. The business-minded management folks at tech companies tend to measure success and failure purely in dollars. If the company's financial indicators are good, they assume their trajectory is correct and change nothing. They won't fix or improve existing systems unless an issue is measurably costing them revenue. In the case of the enterprise shop I work at, our revenue increases year over year, and so technical debt doesn't get addressed unless it causes such trouble that clients threaten to leave. Development gets slower and costlier over time as cruft builds up in the codebase, but that effect can't be measured, so it doesn't exist as far as management is concerned. In Slack's case, their indicator of success is the giant valuation they just got. Their desktop app is an annoying resource hog, but hey, they have tremendous market share, so it must not really be a problem for users. And if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
- eschutte2 8y ago
  Slack pays much more than $150k.
  - hvidgaard 8y ago
    The average wage for a senior developer in silicon valley is $130-140k for 2018 (according to various sources on google). I have a hard time believing that a company so obviously business management focused as evident of how crap their application runs, willingly pay "much more than $150K". Nothing in their application requires it, and developers able to require "much more than $150K" wouldn't touch that with a 10ft pole.
fastball 8y ago
You can think a 5-person team can build highly performant native apps for a number of different platforms in a matter of months?
- StaticRedux 8y ago
  Yes
  - fastball 8y ago
    Great! Now can you name an app where that actually happened?
- conradfr 8y ago
  Do they have to do a DSM everyday and retrospective, backlog grooming, sprint planning and whatnot every two weeks? Then no.
- joelhaasnoot 8y ago
  Start with Mac, find some good metrics that indicate that a lot of your users are on Mac and go from there. (parse your user agents for instance) Once it's proven itself, you can try Windows and some other options as needed (probably mobile).
  - russdpale 8y ago
    You don't even need good metrics. Just write some software that doesn't run like shit. That is the only metric that is needed. If you build it, they will come. Especially if they don't have a choice. So build the new, deprecate the old.
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    Why would someone start with a minor platform? Mac is consistently 5-6 percentage of the market and has been for decades. They honestly have never been a player.
    - 8y ago
phailhaus 8y ago
> And honestly, how hard can it be? Excuse me? You think 5 people can 100% replicate Slack natively within "a few months"?
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  That's not what they said. A significant fraction (probably the majority) of Slack's functionality is server-side, not client-side. Even if the client were to be rewritten from scratch, you would not need to replicate 100% of Slack. But you also don't need to re-implement the entire client. You need to do a significant architectural change for performance improvements, not a complete overhaul. Reasonable people can disagree about whether or not that's feasible for five engineers already familiar with the codebase to do within a few months. Your incredulity at the idea is unwarranted.
  - phailhaus 8y ago
    No, it's pretty warranted. The 100% I was referring to _was_ just for the clientside. To rewrite that natively (since today it's in js on Electron) is not going to take a couple of months with five engineers.
    - mercer 8y ago
      I don't think it's entirely out of the realm of possibility that could be done, and a couple of months with five engineers was a conservative estimate. $375.000 for twice the devs or twice the number of months is still a shockingly low price to pay. Hell, throw a few million at it and I can't see why Slack can't be implemented natively on at least iOS, MacOS and Android (especially if parts can still fallback on webviews).
      - TheCoelacanth 8y ago
        It is entirely out of the realm of possibility. There is absolutely no way in hell that even ten engineers for a couple of months could replicate all of Slack's functionality. Even ten times that much would be a stretch. They could maybe make a decent chat app prototype in that amount of time. If they are very talented, they might even be able to make a decent chat app MVP that would get some actual users, but there is absolutely no way that they could replicate all of Slack's functionality.
iambateman 8y ago
But once you get to that organizational size, there are 3 project managers and a VP with an agenda and designers and design managers and a QA department which is backed up “for a bit” and a PR team who wants to make sure we get a good Q2’19 “win with the developer crowd”. So it takes a year, and $2.5M, to do what should take 3 months and $300k. * not saying this is the case at Slack, it’s just often the case at Everywhere. ;)
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  Exactly. A completely rewritten from scratch product would probably take 1 year to finish. 90% complete can be ready in a few months, but the last 10% takes much more effort. Then there's the QA division you need to build out to test it on the platforms and OSes you need to support your enterprise customers. Then there's the management structure to track the project. Then there's keeping it up to date with the existing service's changes as it's both in development and production. Then there's the migration to switch users to the new client, and the phasing out of the old client over time. It's doable, but it's non-trivial, and probably only buys you the accolades of a small percentage of users on slower hardware. (And incidentally, almost every video chat app I use today runs the fans and slows down my system, but I can deal with it)
  - russdpale 8y ago
    Electron apps are for amateurs and small start up teams. Once you are into the 7b valuation range, you need to put on big boy pants, and make big boy software that runs as advertised. No video functionality even needs to exist for it to run terribly. I have never used the video feature, and it causes my entire 4-5 year old system to chug. I can't even consider using it on an old linux machine. People shouldn't have to put up with the system crawl that ensues after firing up slack. It is absurd for the money they charge.
    - chrisco255 8y ago
      VS Code is an Electron app written by the $800B Microsoft. Maybe you've heard of them?
fizx 8y ago
Video performance is a LOT harder than you think. At another company, I watched an five person team, half of whom had related PhDs, the other half over a dozen years of video engineering experience, make incremental improvements to the WebRTC stack. After a year, was it better? The metrics said it was somewhat better, but the customers still complained all the time.
- joelhaasnoot 8y ago
  Ship a Mac client without video. Add video next year once you've proven that people actually use a native Mac client. Some companies call this 'agile' - it's a strange concept.
  - d3sandoval 8y ago
    Video calls (with screen sharing) are the only reason I have the Mac client installed. Otherwise I'd just use the web app...
- romwell 8y ago
  >Video performance is a LOT harder than you think. But it's been done. Skype video calls worked on far inferior hardware and networks back in the day.
moistoreos 8y ago
But Electron man. Electron. (sarcasm)

drb91 8y ago

No need! Everyone is already so happy with the electron version; why would they waste more money improving your experience?

ihuman 8y ago
Because not everyone is already happy with the electron version?
- drb91 8y ago
  (I was sarcastic!)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

hvidgaard 8y ago

Lets assume well paid developers of $150.000 yearly, 5 man for 3 months is less than $187.500 is wages. Lets be generous and say we double that to account for other expenses. It's $375.000 for a feature that will be a reasonable sales argument.

spyridonas 8y ago
Let's throw these money and work hours to electron contribution! It will make every electron app faster
- cmiles74 8y ago
  I think Google is already throwing enough money at Chromium for all of us (Electron runs on top of Chromium AFAICT). In my opinion, Google's expectation is that you run one instance of Chromium per machine. Electron wants to run one per application. Hence performance woes.
mercer 8y ago
Much as I usually try to understand the 'business end' of things, I have to say that I'm baffled that Slack hasn't done this yet. I rather like Slack, and have good reasons to use it (it's pretty central to Elixir's community, for one), but even on my relatively beefy MBP (2015) I actively avoid having the app open because it's a heavy Electron piece of shit. While of course I might be a bit of an outlier as a developer with a preference for 'lighter' applications (and comfortable with CLI stuff), surely I'm not that much of an outlier...
- pluto9 8y ago
  I think it's typical. The business-minded management folks at tech companies tend to measure success and failure purely in dollars. If the company's financial indicators are good, they assume their trajectory is correct and change nothing. They won't fix or improve existing systems unless an issue is measurably costing them revenue. In the case of the enterprise shop I work at, our revenue increases year over year, and so technical debt doesn't get addressed unless it causes such trouble that clients threaten to leave. Development gets slower and costlier over time as cruft builds up in the codebase, but that effect can't be measured, so it doesn't exist as far as management is concerned. In Slack's case, their indicator of success is the giant valuation they just got. Their desktop app is an annoying resource hog, but hey, they have tremendous market share, so it must not really be a problem for users. And if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
eschutte2 8y ago
Slack pays much more than $150k.
- hvidgaard 8y ago
  The average wage for a senior developer in silicon valley is $130-140k for 2018 (according to various sources on google). I have a hard time believing that a company so obviously business management focused as evident of how crap their application runs, willingly pay "much more than $150K". Nothing in their application requires it, and developers able to require "much more than $150K" wouldn't touch that with a 10ft pole.

fastball 8y ago

You can think a 5-person team can build highly performant native apps for a number of different platforms in a matter of months?

StaticRedux 8y ago
Yes
- fastball 8y ago
  Great! Now can you name an app where that actually happened?
conradfr 8y ago
Do they have to do a DSM everyday and retrospective, backlog grooming, sprint planning and whatnot every two weeks? Then no.
joelhaasnoot 8y ago
Start with Mac, find some good metrics that indicate that a lot of your users are on Mac and go from there. (parse your user agents for instance) Once it's proven itself, you can try Windows and some other options as needed (probably mobile).
- russdpale 8y ago
  You don't even need good metrics. Just write some software that doesn't run like shit. That is the only metric that is needed. If you build it, they will come. Especially if they don't have a choice. So build the new, deprecate the old.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  Why would someone start with a minor platform? Mac is consistently 5-6 percentage of the market and has been for decades. They honestly have never been a player.
  - 8y ago

phailhaus 8y ago

> And honestly, how hard can it be? Excuse me? You think 5 people can 100% replicate Slack natively within "a few months"?

throwawaymath 8y ago
That's not what they said. A significant fraction (probably the majority) of Slack's functionality is server-side, not client-side. Even if the client were to be rewritten from scratch, you would not need to replicate 100% of Slack. But you also don't need to re-implement the entire client. You need to do a significant architectural change for performance improvements, not a complete overhaul. Reasonable people can disagree about whether or not that's feasible for five engineers already familiar with the codebase to do within a few months. Your incredulity at the idea is unwarranted.
- phailhaus 8y ago
  No, it's pretty warranted. The 100% I was referring to _was_ just for the clientside. To rewrite that natively (since today it's in js on Electron) is not going to take a couple of months with five engineers.
  - mercer 8y ago
    I don't think it's entirely out of the realm of possibility that could be done, and a couple of months with five engineers was a conservative estimate. $375.000 for twice the devs or twice the number of months is still a shockingly low price to pay. Hell, throw a few million at it and I can't see why Slack can't be implemented natively on at least iOS, MacOS and Android (especially if parts can still fallback on webviews).
    - TheCoelacanth 8y ago
      It is entirely out of the realm of possibility. There is absolutely no way in hell that even ten engineers for a couple of months could replicate all of Slack's functionality. Even ten times that much would be a stretch. They could maybe make a decent chat app prototype in that amount of time. If they are very talented, they might even be able to make a decent chat app MVP that would get some actual users, but there is absolutely no way that they could replicate all of Slack's functionality.

iambateman 8y ago

But once you get to that organizational size, there are 3 project managers and a VP with an agenda and designers and design managers and a QA department which is backed up “for a bit” and a PR team who wants to make sure we get a good Q2’19 “win with the developer crowd”. So it takes a year, and $2.5M, to do what should take 3 months and $300k. * not saying this is the case at Slack, it’s just often the case at Everywhere. ;)

peterwwillis 8y ago
Exactly. A completely rewritten from scratch product would probably take 1 year to finish. 90% complete can be ready in a few months, but the last 10% takes much more effort. Then there's the QA division you need to build out to test it on the platforms and OSes you need to support your enterprise customers. Then there's the management structure to track the project. Then there's keeping it up to date with the existing service's changes as it's both in development and production. Then there's the migration to switch users to the new client, and the phasing out of the old client over time. It's doable, but it's non-trivial, and probably only buys you the accolades of a small percentage of users on slower hardware. (And incidentally, almost every video chat app I use today runs the fans and slows down my system, but I can deal with it)
- russdpale 8y ago
  Electron apps are for amateurs and small start up teams. Once you are into the 7b valuation range, you need to put on big boy pants, and make big boy software that runs as advertised. No video functionality even needs to exist for it to run terribly. I have never used the video feature, and it causes my entire 4-5 year old system to chug. I can't even consider using it on an old linux machine. People shouldn't have to put up with the system crawl that ensues after firing up slack. It is absurd for the money they charge.
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    VS Code is an Electron app written by the $800B Microsoft. Maybe you've heard of them?

fizx 8y ago

Video performance is a LOT harder than you think. At another company, I watched an five person team, half of whom had related PhDs, the other half over a dozen years of video engineering experience, make incremental improvements to the WebRTC stack. After a year, was it better? The metrics said it was somewhat better, but the customers still complained all the time.

joelhaasnoot 8y ago
Ship a Mac client without video. Add video next year once you've proven that people actually use a native Mac client. Some companies call this 'agile' - it's a strange concept.
- d3sandoval 8y ago
  Video calls (with screen sharing) are the only reason I have the Mac client installed. Otherwise I'd just use the web app...
romwell 8y ago
>Video performance is a LOT harder than you think. But it's been done. Skype video calls worked on far inferior hardware and networks back in the day.

moistoreos 8y ago

But Electron man. Electron. (sarcasm)