4 ms·

I have heard a lot of complaints about Electron on various aspects, but one thing it has done well is to open the niche of cross platform Desktop apps to an ave

I have heard a lot of complaints about Electron on various aspects, but one thing it has done well is to open the niche of cross platform Desktop apps to an average regular developer like me. It can be also used to quickly test an idea before dedicating platform specific resources. I hope the team adds more features keeps Electron alive.

criddell 8y ago
Microsoft adopting Chromium is a big hint that they are going to make some big investments in Electron. I think Electron's future is bright. My big complaint isn't the resource usage, it's how the applications never feel right on any platform.
- krzyk 8y ago
  Exactly, Electron apps feel always like webpages :(
  - jazoom 8y ago
    I've never once felt VS Code was a webpage.
    - criddell 8y ago
      It feels close to that for me. It definitely feels foreign on every platform.
      - y4mi 8y ago
        IntelliJ has the same problem. so does everything adobe creates and ... honestly, almost everything that caters to a niche doesn't really try to be native, as that would often create an inferior product for that specific usecase. though there are very bad examples as well. all these chat apps like discord, slack and rocketchat for example.
- chr1 8y ago
  It's a feature, they feel like a part of the web, which is the more important platform, for the majority of people who spend most of their time using web apps.
  - na85 8y ago
    Ugh, I can't wait til this era of "everything must be a web app" is over. Web apps are universally worse in their UX than native.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      For a while I though native mobile web apps had it, but now with PWAs, WebAssembly and the return of mainframe, sorry cloud, I guess they are here to stay.
fabiospampinato 8y ago
Exactly, as a solo developer I can't imagine making a cross-platform app in 3 different languages and perhaps developing a landing page for the app in a 4th completely different stack. I'd much rather learn 1 stack well, write the app once, and spend time _optimizing_ it rather then _reimplementing_ it.
casper345 8y ago
Good point, right now I use Electron as a quick MVP for basic apps. If the apps become more complex, then we will talk about moving to a native platform if we need to focus on native libraries or performance. Pick the tool for the job at hand.

criddell 8y ago

Microsoft adopting Chromium is a big hint that they are going to make some big investments in Electron. I think Electron's future is bright. My big complaint isn't the resource usage, it's how the applications never feel right on any platform.

krzyk 8y ago
Exactly, Electron apps feel always like webpages :(
- jazoom 8y ago
  I've never once felt VS Code was a webpage.
  - criddell 8y ago
    It feels close to that for me. It definitely feels foreign on every platform.
    - y4mi 8y ago
      IntelliJ has the same problem. so does everything adobe creates and ... honestly, almost everything that caters to a niche doesn't really try to be native, as that would often create an inferior product for that specific usecase. though there are very bad examples as well. all these chat apps like discord, slack and rocketchat for example.
chr1 8y ago
It's a feature, they feel like a part of the web, which is the more important platform, for the majority of people who spend most of their time using web apps.
- na85 8y ago
  Ugh, I can't wait til this era of "everything must be a web app" is over. Web apps are universally worse in their UX than native.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    For a while I though native mobile web apps had it, but now with PWAs, WebAssembly and the return of mainframe, sorry cloud, I guess they are here to stay.

fabiospampinato 8y ago

Exactly, as a solo developer I can't imagine making a cross-platform app in 3 different languages and perhaps developing a landing page for the app in a 4th completely different stack. I'd much rather learn 1 stack well, write the app once, and spend time _optimizing_ it rather then _reimplementing_ it.

casper345 8y ago

Good point, right now I use Electron as a quick MVP for basic apps. If the apps become more complex, then we will talk about moving to a native platform if we need to focus on native libraries or performance. Pick the tool for the job at hand.