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The most obvious Electron alternative on any platform is of course doing things the way we sort of used to: Get your toolkits and compilers out, your hands dirt

The most obvious Electron alternative on any platform is of course doing things the way we sort of used to: Get your toolkits and compilers out, your hands dirty, and your integrity clean and code some honest to God desktop applications. If you absolutely need to do web primitives inside your app, well then, html engines used to come in a few megabytes and no external deps. If your webcode needs the entire Chromium monstrosity bundled in order to run, someone has been doing something entirely wrong.

outadoc 8y ago
The most obvious counter-argument: one shared codebase vs. your five. Native is awesome when you have the money.
- arcticwombat 8y ago
  Meh, I write cross platform applications, single code base, and compile to native executables on Windows, Linux, and Mac with no problem and no extra Chromium bloat. FreePascal + Lazarus.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    How do I run that on web, the most important platform today? I'm also not aware of any comparable community like Node.js has. And I say that as someone who was writing Pascal professionally ~5 years ago.
    - arcticwombat 8y ago
      We're not talking about web applications, we're talking about Electron. But sure, if you want to do Pascal on the web there are things like Smart Pascal.
      - TomMarius 8y ago
        We're talking about ways to do multiplatform applications, which includes the web. You suggested Pascal but that doesn't run on the web without changing the code. Enclosing the application in Electron shell does not mean it's the only way it's going to be ran, actually most of the time you do it because you already have a web application and a server.
        arcticwombat 8y ago
        You can't run an Electron app on the web without changing code either, seeing as it's a browser AND a webserver combo. You also don't take a webapp and separate server and just drop the two into a folder and run it as an Electron app without changing code
        TomMarius 8y ago
        Not true. You can code the app in a way that allows you to share code completely between web, server and Electron app; there will just be a little boilerplate in the Electron app around it.
  - cztomsik 8y ago
    I've done delphi in the past but I haven't heard about it for a while. How big is the community nowadays? What about libs? Package manager? Dependency-hell? Unit-testing frameworks and other toolings? How easy is it to stop the whole application and inspect everything, evaluate some code in parent stack and see if the issue was resolved so that you know exactly what to do? It's not only about GUI designer and fast cross-platform compiler.
    - arcticwombat 8y ago
      Online package manager can search, download, and install packages. I have libs/packages for everything I need, dunno about your needs. Not sure about the community size but it's plenty big and plenty helpful, lots of cool new stuff going on. Plenty of debuggers available and you can pause things and inspect stuff. Lazarus has seen loads of updates the last few years, it's worth taking the time to set it up to fit your needs and learn the shortcuts.
- ken 8y ago
  False dichotomy. There are plenty of ways to share code across these platforms, without writing everything in JavaScript.
- izacus 8y ago
  People have been writing shared codebase apps for decades even before the Javascript craze. What do you think the cross-platform browsers you're packaging in Elecron are written in?!
  - pcwalton 8y ago
    > What do you think the cross-platform browsers you're packaging in Elecron are written in?! The cross-platform browsers are written in a whole lot of platform-specific code.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Much less difficult if you follow basic software engineering practice when writing your software - split out platform-dependent parts and abstract them away, write remaining 90%+ of your codebase without worrying about the platform.
- c-smile 8y ago
  Not exactly. I am building HTML-NOTEPAD (https://html-notepad.com https://html-notepad.com) from the same sources ( https://github.com/c-smile/sciter-sdk/tree/master/notepad https://github.com/c-smile/sciter-sdk/tree/master/notepad ) for all desktop platforms. It uses sciter (https://sciter.com https://sciter.com) which is sort of micro-electron if you wish. Distribution of the app is 2mb rather than 200mb.
woah 8y ago
I obviously prefer to use native apps as well, but your comment sounds like some sort of bizarre moral judgement, not a rational programming decision.
- interfixus 8y ago
  You are probably right, I'm being highly subjective. I loathe the entirety of Electron & consorts with real passion, retrograde, unfashionable bittweaker that I am.
- de_watcher 8y ago
  Especially when the OS vendors are at fault by each pushing their own API for the same thing to wall their gardens. We can only defeat that by having another awkward "OS" in a VM which browser/electron is.
  - yakubin 8y ago
    Or, as jacoblambda wrote several comments above, just use Qt.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Analemma_ 8y ago
    I don’t like walled gardens any more than the next guy, but it’s easy to push this argument into absurd territory. Are OS vendors required to offer identical APIs, to the point where it’s immoral for them to have differentiated functionality and useful features? What is even the point of having different operating systems then?
    - kitsunesoba 8y ago
      Common APIs between operating systems also introduce the common denominator problem: if OS vendor A wants to add some cool new API for third party devs to use, they have to wait until other OS vendors also implement that API, otherwise they risk other OS vendors never implementing it and devs never using the API.
janpot 8y ago
The day OS vendors come together and standardize their API's, much like browser vendors do, I will build apps with native code.
- jacoblambda 8y ago
  Well Qt is pretty much there for desktop. Almost everything can be done in a relatively straight forward, platform independent way as long as you aren't doing mobile.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    >as long as you aren't doing mobile. That to me is the biggest issue. There's "cross platform" and there's "cross platform". QT gets you the major desktop platforms, but not a ton more. The web gets you desktops, mobile phones, tablets, game consoles, TVs, car infotainment systems, even my fucking watch! Obviously you aren't going to handle all of those without some custom code for a few platforms, but when the web is a target platform for a project at all, it's often worlds easier to just spend the time on improving the mostly single codebase rather than try to do multiple codebases. And I genuinely believe that outside of larger companies, having the whole company dedicated and focused on improving one codebase is going to end up with a better user experience than splitting those same resources up over several codebases. If your app is desktop-oriented only, then Qt is such a fantastic system to work with! But it's increasingly rare that software targets desktop only.
    - jacoblambda 8y ago
      My problem that I find is that mobile, consoles, TVs, car entertainment systems, watches, and so on all need fairly distinctly different UIs from desktop and if you have to redesign the entire UI for them anyway, then why not do it in a native system that handles them well. Odds are most of the heavy lifting will either be fairly trivial or done in a separate back-end be it on a server or locally. At that point it doesn't really matter what you write the front end in as long as the back-end has a decent API. Also quick edit: A number of car dash UIs do actually run on Qt and Qt does support mobile but Qt does its own compositing instead of the OS.
TomMarius 8y ago
> someone has been doing something entirely wrong. Agreed. Seems like there is no alternative, though; what you said in your first paragraph definitely is not a comparable alternative except if you're handing out money my company could use to do what you suggest.

outadoc 8y ago

The most obvious counter-argument: one shared codebase vs. your five. Native is awesome when you have the money.

arcticwombat 8y ago
Meh, I write cross platform applications, single code base, and compile to native executables on Windows, Linux, and Mac with no problem and no extra Chromium bloat. FreePascal + Lazarus.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  How do I run that on web, the most important platform today? I'm also not aware of any comparable community like Node.js has. And I say that as someone who was writing Pascal professionally ~5 years ago.
  - arcticwombat 8y ago
    We're not talking about web applications, we're talking about Electron. But sure, if you want to do Pascal on the web there are things like Smart Pascal.
    - TomMarius 8y ago
      We're talking about ways to do multiplatform applications, which includes the web. You suggested Pascal but that doesn't run on the web without changing the code. Enclosing the application in Electron shell does not mean it's the only way it's going to be ran, actually most of the time you do it because you already have a web application and a server.
      - arcticwombat 8y ago
        You can't run an Electron app on the web without changing code either, seeing as it's a browser AND a webserver combo. You also don't take a webapp and separate server and just drop the two into a folder and run it as an Electron app without changing code
        TomMarius 8y ago
        Not true. You can code the app in a way that allows you to share code completely between web, server and Electron app; there will just be a little boilerplate in the Electron app around it.
- cztomsik 8y ago
  I've done delphi in the past but I haven't heard about it for a while. How big is the community nowadays? What about libs? Package manager? Dependency-hell? Unit-testing frameworks and other toolings? How easy is it to stop the whole application and inspect everything, evaluate some code in parent stack and see if the issue was resolved so that you know exactly what to do? It's not only about GUI designer and fast cross-platform compiler.
  - arcticwombat 8y ago
    Online package manager can search, download, and install packages. I have libs/packages for everything I need, dunno about your needs. Not sure about the community size but it's plenty big and plenty helpful, lots of cool new stuff going on. Plenty of debuggers available and you can pause things and inspect stuff. Lazarus has seen loads of updates the last few years, it's worth taking the time to set it up to fit your needs and learn the shortcuts.
ken 8y ago
False dichotomy. There are plenty of ways to share code across these platforms, without writing everything in JavaScript.
izacus 8y ago
People have been writing shared codebase apps for decades even before the Javascript craze. What do you think the cross-platform browsers you're packaging in Elecron are written in?!
- pcwalton 8y ago
  > What do you think the cross-platform browsers you're packaging in Elecron are written in?! The cross-platform browsers are written in a whole lot of platform-specific code.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
Much less difficult if you follow basic software engineering practice when writing your software - split out platform-dependent parts and abstract them away, write remaining 90%+ of your codebase without worrying about the platform.
c-smile 8y ago
Not exactly. I am building HTML-NOTEPAD (https://html-notepad.com https://html-notepad.com) from the same sources ( https://github.com/c-smile/sciter-sdk/tree/master/notepad https://github.com/c-smile/sciter-sdk/tree/master/notepad ) for all desktop platforms. It uses sciter (https://sciter.com https://sciter.com) which is sort of micro-electron if you wish. Distribution of the app is 2mb rather than 200mb.

woah 8y ago

I obviously prefer to use native apps as well, but your comment sounds like some sort of bizarre moral judgement, not a rational programming decision.

interfixus 8y ago
You are probably right, I'm being highly subjective. I loathe the entirety of Electron & consorts with real passion, retrograde, unfashionable bittweaker that I am.
de_watcher 8y ago
Especially when the OS vendors are at fault by each pushing their own API for the same thing to wall their gardens. We can only defeat that by having another awkward "OS" in a VM which browser/electron is.
- yakubin 8y ago
  Or, as jacoblambda wrote several comments above, just use Qt.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  I don’t like walled gardens any more than the next guy, but it’s easy to push this argument into absurd territory. Are OS vendors required to offer identical APIs, to the point where it’s immoral for them to have differentiated functionality and useful features? What is even the point of having different operating systems then?
  - kitsunesoba 8y ago
    Common APIs between operating systems also introduce the common denominator problem: if OS vendor A wants to add some cool new API for third party devs to use, they have to wait until other OS vendors also implement that API, otherwise they risk other OS vendors never implementing it and devs never using the API.

janpot 8y ago

The day OS vendors come together and standardize their API's, much like browser vendors do, I will build apps with native code.

jacoblambda 8y ago
Well Qt is pretty much there for desktop. Almost everything can be done in a relatively straight forward, platform independent way as long as you aren't doing mobile.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  >as long as you aren't doing mobile. That to me is the biggest issue. There's "cross platform" and there's "cross platform". QT gets you the major desktop platforms, but not a ton more. The web gets you desktops, mobile phones, tablets, game consoles, TVs, car infotainment systems, even my fucking watch! Obviously you aren't going to handle all of those without some custom code for a few platforms, but when the web is a target platform for a project at all, it's often worlds easier to just spend the time on improving the mostly single codebase rather than try to do multiple codebases. And I genuinely believe that outside of larger companies, having the whole company dedicated and focused on improving one codebase is going to end up with a better user experience than splitting those same resources up over several codebases. If your app is desktop-oriented only, then Qt is such a fantastic system to work with! But it's increasingly rare that software targets desktop only.
  - jacoblambda 8y ago
    My problem that I find is that mobile, consoles, TVs, car entertainment systems, watches, and so on all need fairly distinctly different UIs from desktop and if you have to redesign the entire UI for them anyway, then why not do it in a native system that handles them well. Odds are most of the heavy lifting will either be fairly trivial or done in a separate back-end be it on a server or locally. At that point it doesn't really matter what you write the front end in as long as the back-end has a decent API. Also quick edit: A number of car dash UIs do actually run on Qt and Qt does support mobile but Qt does its own compositing instead of the OS.

TomMarius 8y ago

> someone has been doing something entirely wrong. Agreed. Seems like there is no alternative, though; what you said in your first paragraph definitely is not a comparable alternative except if you're handing out money my company could use to do what you suggest.