5 ms·

This doesn't align with what I see in my Activitiy Monitor when I open it up and look at the Slack usage. I don't know a ton about this stuff, so maybe it's a r

This doesn't align with what I see in my Activitiy Monitor when I open it up and look at the Slack usage. I don't know a ton about this stuff, so maybe it's a relative thing, but my Mac has next to no problems with Slack like he's raging over in this post. The memory footprint is way smaller than his screenshots show. I also have 10 workspaces connected (not sure how that plays into it). > I mean come on. Its a text chat program. Seriously? To boil Slack down to just a chat program is silly, when you look at all the feature it has with it (screen sharing, calling, file sharing, etc.). Electron hate is the new PHP hate. As I've seen many others say before on HN, what people don't seem to get is the experience of using Electron is miles ahead of anything else in convenience. Instead of writing a blog post ranting about Electron, why not be constructive and talk about solutions or alternatives? Wouldn't that be more productive? EDIT: Didn't realize this post was from 2016. Seems way out of date, carry on, nothing to see here.

morpheuskafka 8y ago
I wish people understood that (especially when it comes to FOSS, but even for proprietary software), convenience = more features. With Electron, shipping a Linux desktop app after writing the Windows/macOS one is almost no extra effort. Meanwhile, asking a developer with <1% Linux users to rewrite a Windows Forms app into GTK is not going to happen.
- EduardoBautista 8y ago
  Making the experience worse for 99% of users just so that the other 1% can have an app on their desktop that works the same way in their browsers is a horrible idea.
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  Hey, I'd be fine with Slack being completely unavailable for Linux. I don't think any of the places where I have to use it currently would use it in that case.
x0x0 8y ago
2 workspaces 1.3g.
michaelmrose 8y ago
"Electron hate is the new PHP hate." The new thing that people hate because it makes their work life bad? That is harsh criticism indeed.
nv-vn 8y ago
On Windows I see very similar results. Discord, doing nothing, idles at 165mb of memory usage and Signal (with even fewer features than Discord) manages to use 233mb while doing fuck all. Telegram, which has just as many features, idles at 78.5 (still a lot!!) and opens in literally 5ms instead of loading up for 30+ seconds. >what people don't seem to get is the experience of using Electron is miles ahead of anything else in convenience. That just blatantly isn't true. QML has the same "write markup run JS" idea and WPF is just XML bound to whatever .NET language you want. They might take a few minutes to learn if you already know web programming, but once you start writing code it doesn't take any longer than writing the equivalent HTML/JS/CSS. Like the OP said, React Native accomplishes the same but runs 1000x better. Getting people to step away from Electron for 5 seconds, especially when they have the resources to do so (i.e. Slack being able to raise $400 million this year, Discord raising $150 million, etc.) It's insane that none of these companies have spent the tiny amount of time working on some open-source framework that's better than Electron.
- Buttons840 8y ago
  > idles at 165mb of memory usage I was starting to build an Electron app recently. My "hello world" app was using about 200mb, and so I was thinking things looked pretty good, and it wouldn't be too heavy if I was careful. Then I noticed there were actually more system processes involved with the app that I realized, it was really using about 400mb. Then I starting resizing the "hello world" app's window. I maximized it, minimized it, and shook my mouse furiously making the window all kinds of shapes and sizes. After this the app related threads were using about 1gig of memory. Just for a "hello world" app. Now I'm always hesitant to accept claims that an Electron app isn't using much memory. Are you sure you're looking at all the related system threads?
derefr 8y ago
> Seriously? To boil Slack down to just a chat program is silly, when you look at all the feature it has with it (screen sharing, calling, file sharing, etc.). I—and I think a lot of other people—want a version of Slack that does not have these things, and is lighter thereby. Just an IRC-like interface for Slack where every file or image uploaded is just a URL that will open with your OS-configured web browser. (Yes, I know there are a few attempts, but they're CLIs and I do still want a GUI Slack. There's no reason for me to be reading conversational prose as monospace text with no styling. There is a place between plaintext and full-on HTML, called "rich text", and every proprietary chat program in the 90s sat in it and used next-to-no resources. Where has "rich text" gone in 2019? Everything is seemingly either plaintext or full-blown HTML webviews.)

morpheuskafka 8y ago

I wish people understood that (especially when it comes to FOSS, but even for proprietary software), convenience = more features. With Electron, shipping a Linux desktop app after writing the Windows/macOS one is almost no extra effort. Meanwhile, asking a developer with <1% Linux users to rewrite a Windows Forms app into GTK is not going to happen.

EduardoBautista 8y ago
Making the experience worse for 99% of users just so that the other 1% can have an app on their desktop that works the same way in their browsers is a horrible idea.
ahartmetz 8y ago
Hey, I'd be fine with Slack being completely unavailable for Linux. I don't think any of the places where I have to use it currently would use it in that case.

x0x0 8y ago

2 workspaces 1.3g.

michaelmrose 8y ago

"Electron hate is the new PHP hate." The new thing that people hate because it makes their work life bad? That is harsh criticism indeed.

nv-vn 8y ago

On Windows I see very similar results. Discord, doing nothing, idles at 165mb of memory usage and Signal (with even fewer features than Discord) manages to use 233mb while doing fuck all. Telegram, which has just as many features, idles at 78.5 (still a lot!!) and opens in literally 5ms instead of loading up for 30+ seconds. >what people don't seem to get is the experience of using Electron is miles ahead of anything else in convenience. That just blatantly isn't true. QML has the same "write markup run JS" idea and WPF is just XML bound to whatever .NET language you want. They might take a few minutes to learn if you already know web programming, but once you start writing code it doesn't take any longer than writing the equivalent HTML/JS/CSS. Like the OP said, React Native accomplishes the same but runs 1000x better. Getting people to step away from Electron for 5 seconds, especially when they have the resources to do so (i.e. Slack being able to raise $400 million this year, Discord raising $150 million, etc.) It's insane that none of these companies have spent the tiny amount of time working on some open-source framework that's better than Electron.

Buttons840 8y ago
> idles at 165mb of memory usage I was starting to build an Electron app recently. My "hello world" app was using about 200mb, and so I was thinking things looked pretty good, and it wouldn't be too heavy if I was careful. Then I noticed there were actually more system processes involved with the app that I realized, it was really using about 400mb. Then I starting resizing the "hello world" app's window. I maximized it, minimized it, and shook my mouse furiously making the window all kinds of shapes and sizes. After this the app related threads were using about 1gig of memory. Just for a "hello world" app. Now I'm always hesitant to accept claims that an Electron app isn't using much memory. Are you sure you're looking at all the related system threads?

derefr 8y ago

> Seriously? To boil Slack down to just a chat program is silly, when you look at all the feature it has with it (screen sharing, calling, file sharing, etc.). I—and I think a lot of other people—want a version of Slack that does not have these things, and is lighter thereby. Just an IRC-like interface for Slack where every file or image uploaded is just a URL that will open with your OS-configured web browser. (Yes, I know there are a few attempts, but they're CLIs and I do still want a GUI Slack. There's no reason for me to be reading conversational prose as monospace text with no styling. There is a place between plaintext and full-on HTML, called "rich text", and every proprietary chat program in the 90s sat in it and used next-to-no resources. Where has "rich text" gone in 2019? Everything is seemingly either plaintext or full-blown HTML webviews.)