9 ms·

Seriously, I feel like it’s such an indictment on native app tool development that we have a bazillion new electron apps written by ppl all the time for weekend

by rtpg 7y ago

Seriously, I feel like it’s such an indictment on native app tool development that we have a bazillion new electron apps written by ppl all the time for weekend projects yet almost no one spitting out native apps to interface with services. It’s clearly in demand (if a bit of a niche kind of demand)

swiley 7y ago
Native development on OSX and iOS both kind of suck unless you completely embrace objective C and coaca. I think that’s what’s turned so many people off to it. It’s comparatively easy to write complex portable applications with tk (or even just strait win32 and whichever X11 widget toolkit is your favorite.)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- shd4 7y ago
  https://github.com/neilalexander/seaglass https://github.com/neilalexander/seaglass looks promising.
  - swiley 7y ago
    That’s exactly what I’m talking about; you can’t reuse code on OSX and more or less have to start from scratch.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > Native development on OSX and iOS both kind of suck unless you completely embrace objective C and coaca. You can try all-Swift development with SwiftUI.
  - swiley 7y ago
    Well yeah that gives you an OS X app and you get to reimplement it completely from scratch for all the other platforms. So it’s exactly the same problem as objective C (except you can at least compile objective C on other platforms you just don’t get the GUI stuff.)
k__ 7y ago
At least some people try to work on that issue: https://www.outrunlabs.com/revery/ https://www.outrunlabs.com/revery/
w354kjhllkj 7y ago
You answered your own question. You can write a pretty and functional Electron app in a weekend. To implement the same level of functionality and prettiness in a native app toolkit like Qt is at least a month of work. It's the same story as Python versus C, or C versus Assembly. When C was introduced, the old-timers had the same complains like we do today: why would you program in such a slow and inefficient language? Real programmers (TM) use Assembly, C is for lazy people who don't want to learn and who don't care about the awful resource wasting. 3 KB for a hello world? That's an absolutely ridiculous level of bloat.
- anoncake 7y ago
  This is not at all the same thing. Programs written in C aren't inherently low-quality, everything abusing the web stack as an application platform – including Electron – is.
  - tsimionescu 7y ago
    If you had said low performance, you would have had a point. Even then, someone else could say that programs based on Electron at least aren't inherently insecure, like programs written in C are.
    - Quiark 7y ago
      Don't get that optimistic about Electron apps security
- rwmj 7y ago
  If Electron vs Qt/C++ were the only two choices that would be true. In reality there are lots of ways to write cross platform native apps without using C or C++: Gtk + scripting language of your choice (even Javascript); Tcl/Tk; WxWindows; Mono/C#; lots of Java options; Delphi/Lazarus.
  - EGreg 7y ago
    Isn’t NW.js way better than Electron? And they have a robust ecosystem https://hackernoon.com/why-i-prefer-nw-js-over-electron-2018-comparison-e60b7289752 https://hackernoon.com/why-i-prefer-nw-js-over-electron-2018... https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js
Arathorn 7y ago
There are a bunch of very promising native desktop Matrix clients in progress: https://github.com/Nheko-Reborn/nheko https://github.com/Nheko-Reborn/nheko as a Qt telegram-like https://github.com/quotient-im/Quaternion https://github.com/quotient-im/Quaternion as a Qt xchat-like https://github.com/manuroe/messagerie https://github.com/manuroe/messagerie for instance is a SwiftUI client proof-of-concept that should work on macOS as well as iOS None are as polished as Riot functionalitywise, but we will get there eventually - even more so if people contribute.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  I wonder if there's one for emacs. That's what I'd like to see.
  - swsieber 7y ago
    There's the weechat terminal client.
  - mindB 7y ago
    There is. https://github.com/alphapapa/matrix-client.el/ https://github.com/alphapapa/matrix-client.el/
- MayeulC 7y ago
  Spectral is quite usable as well in my experience (At-based) https://spectral.encom.eu.org/ https://spectral.encom.eu.org/ Fractal is the GTK counterpart https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Fractal https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Fractal Thunderbird also has a Matrix back-end, though XUL is quite close to electron. Lots of other clients https://matrix.org/clients/ https://matrix.org/clients/

by rtpg 7y ago

swiley 7y ago

Native development on OSX and iOS both kind of suck unless you completely embrace objective C and coaca. I think that’s what’s turned so many people off to it. It’s comparatively easy to write complex portable applications with tk (or even just strait win32 and whichever X11 widget toolkit is your favorite.)

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
shd4 7y ago
https://github.com/neilalexander/seaglass https://github.com/neilalexander/seaglass looks promising.
- swiley 7y ago
  That’s exactly what I’m talking about; you can’t reuse code on OSX and more or less have to start from scratch.
saagarjha 7y ago
> Native development on OSX and iOS both kind of suck unless you completely embrace objective C and coaca. You can try all-Swift development with SwiftUI.
- swiley 7y ago
  Well yeah that gives you an OS X app and you get to reimplement it completely from scratch for all the other platforms. So it’s exactly the same problem as objective C (except you can at least compile objective C on other platforms you just don’t get the GUI stuff.)

k__ 7y ago

At least some people try to work on that issue: https://www.outrunlabs.com/revery/ https://www.outrunlabs.com/revery/

w354kjhllkj 7y ago

You answered your own question. You can write a pretty and functional Electron app in a weekend. To implement the same level of functionality and prettiness in a native app toolkit like Qt is at least a month of work. It's the same story as Python versus C, or C versus Assembly. When C was introduced, the old-timers had the same complains like we do today: why would you program in such a slow and inefficient language? Real programmers (TM) use Assembly, C is for lazy people who don't want to learn and who don't care about the awful resource wasting. 3 KB for a hello world? That's an absolutely ridiculous level of bloat.

anoncake 7y ago
This is not at all the same thing. Programs written in C aren't inherently low-quality, everything abusing the web stack as an application platform – including Electron – is.
- tsimionescu 7y ago
  If you had said low performance, you would have had a point. Even then, someone else could say that programs based on Electron at least aren't inherently insecure, like programs written in C are.
  - Quiark 7y ago
    Don't get that optimistic about Electron apps security
rwmj 7y ago
If Electron vs Qt/C++ were the only two choices that would be true. In reality there are lots of ways to write cross platform native apps without using C or C++: Gtk + scripting language of your choice (even Javascript); Tcl/Tk; WxWindows; Mono/C#; lots of Java options; Delphi/Lazarus.
- EGreg 7y ago
  Isn’t NW.js way better than Electron? And they have a robust ecosystem https://hackernoon.com/why-i-prefer-nw-js-over-electron-2018-comparison-e60b7289752 https://hackernoon.com/why-i-prefer-nw-js-over-electron-2018... https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js

Arathorn 7y ago

There are a bunch of very promising native desktop Matrix clients in progress: https://github.com/Nheko-Reborn/nheko https://github.com/Nheko-Reborn/nheko as a Qt telegram-like https://github.com/quotient-im/Quaternion https://github.com/quotient-im/Quaternion as a Qt xchat-like https://github.com/manuroe/messagerie https://github.com/manuroe/messagerie for instance is a SwiftUI client proof-of-concept that should work on macOS as well as iOS None are as polished as Riot functionalitywise, but we will get there eventually - even more so if people contribute.

pmoriarty 7y ago
I wonder if there's one for emacs. That's what I'd like to see.
- swsieber 7y ago
  There's the weechat terminal client.
- mindB 7y ago
  There is. https://github.com/alphapapa/matrix-client.el/ https://github.com/alphapapa/matrix-client.el/
MayeulC 7y ago
Spectral is quite usable as well in my experience (At-based) https://spectral.encom.eu.org/ https://spectral.encom.eu.org/ Fractal is the GTK counterpart https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Fractal https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Fractal Thunderbird also has a Matrix back-end, though XUL is quite close to electron. Lots of other clients https://matrix.org/clients/ https://matrix.org/clients/