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JS had nowhere the popularity it had today. At the time, creating a desktop app in Javascript was not regarded as serious. The reason electron became popular is

JS had nowhere the popularity it had today. At the time, creating a desktop app in Javascript was not regarded as serious. The reason electron became popular is because so many people from other fields (designers, integraters, students...) learn programming through copy / pasting JS and wanted JS for everything. Hence node. And now electron.

zmix 8y ago
Firefox, Thunderbird (and their spin offs) were all considered serious desktop apps. They all were written with XPFE/XULRunner.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  They didn't advertise that much, though. I only learned about XULRunner when I was trying out a keyboard-driven browser (Conkeror). Unlike Electron, XUL wasn't promoted.
  - zmix 8y ago
    And that is the main reason, IMO. Mozilla Inc. never wanted to do more with it.
cztomsik 8y ago
uh, I wouldn't say electron got popular because of copy-pasting newbies. webapp development is a lot of work and SPAs are actually even harder... and so is server development with node. I love javascript, yet I don't think it's suitable for everything. electron got popular, because companies could reuse code and tooling, only for the cost of cpu & memory