4 ms·

>Why the dislike, you ask? Nobody is asking that, there's a crowd in here that restates the same three points about memory, performance and native UI about onc

>Why the dislike, you ask? Nobody is asking that, there's a crowd in here that restates the same three points about memory, performance and native UI about once a week. I dislike waste, I have written assembly code for tiny processors. And yet, I run several Electron apps on my 8gb 2013 Macbook Air and it runs fine, especially VSCode. I am picking that over my previous choice which was native (vim), because I think it's better.

Razengan 7y ago
> there's a crowd in here that restates the same three points about memory, performance and native UI about once a week. Where else would users complain about undesirable developer trends if not on a developers' community?
- kristiandupont 7y ago
  You are right and I am sorry, that was unnecessary. For the record, I do think there are problems with Electron, just not the ones usually mentioned. A big (huge!) problem in my opinion is that two windows can't share JS context. It's the reason why VSCode is way behind in multi-monitor support for instance.
  - RodoBobJon 7y ago
    This drives me crazy with Slack. In 2019 I can't have two chats open at once? Madness.
ajxs 7y ago
Not every developer runs a Macbook. Like many others for my laptop I use Linux running on a cheap ThinkPad with a quarter of the specs of the one you mentioned. ( I could afford to buy an overpriced Macbook, but I like my rugged $100 ThinkPad. ) As I stated elsewhere in this thread, vscode absolutely chews up my battery power. That's a practical concern. If I run several Electron apps on my laptop I'd be lucky to get an entire commute's worth of battery life out of it.
- nl 7y ago
  As someone who spent years complaining about the lack of cross-platform apps that I could run on Linux, I'm grateful everyday for Electron and for MS for using it for VS.Code. The fact that it works the same on OSX and Linux is even better.
  - ptx 7y ago
    Linux wasn't exactly lacking in text editors, though.
Seirdy 7y ago
Not everyone is in your boat. As developers, we build things for others to use; empathy is a cornerstone of the job description. Hopefully this will help illustrate why Electron isn't a good choice: Say a somewhat below-average user has 6GB of memory (I'm being generous here; plenty don't have more than 4GB). Today is a worse-than-usual day, and 4GB are taken by everything that isn't Electron because 40 tabs are open for a research paper due tomorrow. That leaves three gigs to spare. Now the user starts up some Electron apps. - Music player? +400mb - Note-taking? +300mb - Messaging? +500mb (thanks, Slack!) - News? +300mb - Editor/IDE? +500mb That's it. No more space. And that's before we even begin talking about what we're putting that dual-core CPU through. Battery life is a joke at this point. A comparison: My OS, window manager, mail client, password manager, taskbar, music player (mpd+ncmpp+clerk.pl), file manager, system monitor, RSS reader, podcast player, IRC client, and editor/IDE (neovim+language servers with diagnostics, gotos, floating documentation, and refactoring all running) barely use over 1GB of memory, combined. Let that sink in. Essentially, a single electron app using 500mb of memory would increase my memory usage by 40%. People shouldn't have to throw away/upgrade their computers every four years. I'm still rocking a 2013 HP Elitebook G1 with a Haswell i5 as my secondary machine. It runs just as well as my desktop for anything except heavy websites with JS enabled, compiling, and graphics-intensive work. I plan to either continue using it for another few years or donate it and switch to a more lightweight \$199 Pinebook Pro. Using less powerful hardware forces me to empathize with users who are using tech from the past rather than the future, because that's my job. I build tools for people besides myself to use. If you must use the web, consider making your "app" start a local web server and launching the users' preferred browser for a more lightweight solution.

Razengan 7y ago

> there's a crowd in here that restates the same three points about memory, performance and native UI about once a week. Where else would users complain about undesirable developer trends if not on a developers' community?

kristiandupont 7y ago
You are right and I am sorry, that was unnecessary. For the record, I do think there are problems with Electron, just not the ones usually mentioned. A big (huge!) problem in my opinion is that two windows can't share JS context. It's the reason why VSCode is way behind in multi-monitor support for instance.
- RodoBobJon 7y ago
  This drives me crazy with Slack. In 2019 I can't have two chats open at once? Madness.

ajxs 7y ago

Not every developer runs a Macbook. Like many others for my laptop I use Linux running on a cheap ThinkPad with a quarter of the specs of the one you mentioned. ( I could afford to buy an overpriced Macbook, but I like my rugged $100 ThinkPad. ) As I stated elsewhere in this thread, vscode absolutely chews up my battery power. That's a practical concern. If I run several Electron apps on my laptop I'd be lucky to get an entire commute's worth of battery life out of it.

nl 7y ago
As someone who spent years complaining about the lack of cross-platform apps that I could run on Linux, I'm grateful everyday for Electron and for MS for using it for VS.Code. The fact that it works the same on OSX and Linux is even better.
- ptx 7y ago
  Linux wasn't exactly lacking in text editors, though.

Seirdy 7y ago

Not everyone is in your boat. As developers, we build things for others to use; empathy is a cornerstone of the job description. Hopefully this will help illustrate why Electron isn't a good choice: Say a somewhat below-average user has 6GB of memory (I'm being generous here; plenty don't have more than 4GB). Today is a worse-than-usual day, and 4GB are taken by everything that isn't Electron because 40 tabs are open for a research paper due tomorrow. That leaves three gigs to spare. Now the user starts up some Electron apps. - Music player? +400mb - Note-taking? +300mb - Messaging? +500mb (thanks, Slack!) - News? +300mb - Editor/IDE? +500mb That's it. No more space. And that's before we even begin talking about what we're putting that dual-core CPU through. Battery life is a joke at this point. A comparison: My OS, window manager, mail client, password manager, taskbar, music player (mpd+ncmpp+clerk.pl), file manager, system monitor, RSS reader, podcast player, IRC client, and editor/IDE (neovim+language servers with diagnostics, gotos, floating documentation, and refactoring all running) barely use over 1GB of memory, combined. Let that sink in. Essentially, a single electron app using 500mb of memory would increase my memory usage by 40%. People shouldn't have to throw away/upgrade their computers every four years. I'm still rocking a 2013 HP Elitebook G1 with a Haswell i5 as my secondary machine. It runs just as well as my desktop for anything except heavy websites with JS enabled, compiling, and graphics-intensive work. I plan to either continue using it for another few years or donate it and switch to a more lightweight \$199 Pinebook Pro. Using less powerful hardware forces me to empathize with users who are using tech from the past rather than the future, because that's my job. I build tools for people besides myself to use. If you must use the web, consider making your "app" start a local web server and launching the users' preferred browser for a more lightweight solution.