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I've been heads down into the Electron internals for 2-4 months now and working on a document manager for PDF and web content: https://getpolarized.io/ https://

I've been heads down into the Electron internals for 2-4 months now and working on a document manager for PDF and web content: https://getpolarized.io/ https://getpolarized.io/ (self plug) The inevitable thing that always gets brought up is memory usage. It's really not insanely bad if the app is important. I wouldn't use it for a calculator but if it's an important app allocating 150MB of RAM seems worth it. The biggest change here seems to be the build system and the upgrade to Chrome. The Chrome updates are what's important here. Since Chrome is evergreen if your behind a few versions the standard libraries in NPM just stop working. I got bit a while back when when they were a bit behind in releases.

diminoten 8y ago
Who doesn't have 150MB to spare? This laptop has 16GB, why are people hemming and hawing over 150MB???
- hyder_m29 8y ago
  A lot of electron apps (like Slack) could well use over 1GB.
  - diminoten 8y ago
    So I guess I can only run ~16 instances of Slack. Damn...
    - arama471 8y ago
      But that implies you _only_ run Slack.
    - leppr 8y ago
      That means a $1k+ computer with Linux can only run 16 Slack instances. If you're on Windows and aren't as wealthy, the count goes down to 5. Soon you have to micromanage your computer resources instead of purely focusing on work.
      - diminoten 8y ago
        ~5 Slacks! Oh, my! How will the proletariat survive?!?! And yes, obviously if your computer is less powerful you can do less with it. Are you trying to argue that computers are classist because they don't work the same for poor people?
        leppr 8y ago
        My 1st point is the same everyone criticizing performance bloat is trying to make: running our software in such inefficient way, even though we can, is not good. We could accomplish way more for the users if the underlying stack didn't by default eat so much of our performance budget. The 2nd point is simply that unless you're only targeting upper class and tech savvy users, 16 free Gb of RAM will not be your baseline.
- goldfeld 8y ago
  I use some old laptops, the light one I'm using now (good for python dev) has 2GB. The reasonable option (bulky, heats up) has 4GB, the dev rig which I'm not using because age defects are showing up has 6GB. I don't use Chrome because my proliferation of tabs locks it up. Firefox manages fine (must have over 600 tabs open but FF loads just the current tabstrip bufferized segment.) Technology should be efficient in bad conditions.
  - jf- 8y ago
    I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect modern software to perform on hardware that’s 5+ years old. The standard ram for midrange laptops now is what, 8gb? At some point you just have to upgrade.
    - epidemian 8y ago
      > I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect modern software to perform on hardware that’s 5+ years old. Why not? If the hardware still works fine, unless we're doing something intrinsically more complex, i don't see a reason why it shouldn't work :S
      - jf- 8y ago
        Because it holds back innovations, which is what we’re talking about.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        diminoten 8y ago
        You can tell when the average viewer of this site learned to program by how irrationally clingy they are to things like the concept of memory management. It used to matter a lot more, when those people were learning, so now it has to still matter!!!111oneoneeleven
        8y ago
- agildehaus 8y ago
  > This laptop has 16GB Okay? Having a lot of memory does not mean a program should be wasteful, nor does it mean everyone has that.
  - diminoten 8y ago
    Yes, it actually does, because it redefines wasteful, and the availability of many-GB computers means a lot of people do have access. This isn't 2008, we don't need to care about 150MB like we used to.
    - vmchale 8y ago
      > because it redefines wasteful how do people write shit like this and not realize how blatantly user-hostile they are??
      - diminoten 8y ago
        Because it's not user hostile at all?
    - Camto 8y ago
      > many-GB computers Most computers nowadays have 4/8GB, it's not that much memory compared to how much Electron uses.
    - agildehaus 8y ago
      If you have legitimate reason for using 150MB. Developer laziness is NOT a legitimate reason.
    - agildehaus 8y ago
      Remind me never to hire you.
  - vmchale 8y ago
    In fact, many/most computers these days have 8GB of RAM. And in any case, less RAM usage usually means less cache thrashing which in turn means acceptable performance.

diminoten 8y ago

Who doesn't have 150MB to spare? This laptop has 16GB, why are people hemming and hawing over 150MB???

hyder_m29 8y ago
A lot of electron apps (like Slack) could well use over 1GB.
- diminoten 8y ago
  So I guess I can only run ~16 instances of Slack. Damn...
  - arama471 8y ago
    But that implies you _only_ run Slack.
  - leppr 8y ago
    That means a $1k+ computer with Linux can only run 16 Slack instances. If you're on Windows and aren't as wealthy, the count goes down to 5. Soon you have to micromanage your computer resources instead of purely focusing on work.
    - diminoten 8y ago
      ~5 Slacks! Oh, my! How will the proletariat survive?!?! And yes, obviously if your computer is less powerful you can do less with it. Are you trying to argue that computers are classist because they don't work the same for poor people?
      - leppr 8y ago
        My 1st point is the same everyone criticizing performance bloat is trying to make: running our software in such inefficient way, even though we can, is not good. We could accomplish way more for the users if the underlying stack didn't by default eat so much of our performance budget. The 2nd point is simply that unless you're only targeting upper class and tech savvy users, 16 free Gb of RAM will not be your baseline.
goldfeld 8y ago
I use some old laptops, the light one I'm using now (good for python dev) has 2GB. The reasonable option (bulky, heats up) has 4GB, the dev rig which I'm not using because age defects are showing up has 6GB. I don't use Chrome because my proliferation of tabs locks it up. Firefox manages fine (must have over 600 tabs open but FF loads just the current tabstrip bufferized segment.) Technology should be efficient in bad conditions.
- jf- 8y ago
  I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect modern software to perform on hardware that’s 5+ years old. The standard ram for midrange laptops now is what, 8gb? At some point you just have to upgrade.
  - epidemian 8y ago
    > I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect modern software to perform on hardware that’s 5+ years old. Why not? If the hardware still works fine, unless we're doing something intrinsically more complex, i don't see a reason why it shouldn't work :S
    - jf- 8y ago
      Because it holds back innovations, which is what we’re talking about.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - diminoten 8y ago
        You can tell when the average viewer of this site learned to program by how irrationally clingy they are to things like the concept of memory management. It used to matter a lot more, when those people were learning, so now it has to still matter!!!111oneoneeleven
        8y ago
agildehaus 8y ago
> This laptop has 16GB Okay? Having a lot of memory does not mean a program should be wasteful, nor does it mean everyone has that.
- diminoten 8y ago
  Yes, it actually does, because it redefines wasteful, and the availability of many-GB computers means a lot of people do have access. This isn't 2008, we don't need to care about 150MB like we used to.
  - vmchale 8y ago
    > because it redefines wasteful how do people write shit like this and not realize how blatantly user-hostile they are??
    - diminoten 8y ago
      Because it's not user hostile at all?
  - Camto 8y ago
    > many-GB computers Most computers nowadays have 4/8GB, it's not that much memory compared to how much Electron uses.
  - agildehaus 8y ago
    If you have legitimate reason for using 150MB. Developer laziness is NOT a legitimate reason.
  - agildehaus 8y ago
    Remind me never to hire you.
- vmchale 8y ago
  In fact, many/most computers these days have 8GB of RAM. And in any case, less RAM usage usually means less cache thrashing which in turn means acceptable performance.