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This has been posted a few times to HN [0] and I've looked into it superficially without actually trying it out. For the benefit of anyone interested, these are

This has been posted a few times to HN [0] and I've looked into it superficially without actually trying it out. For the benefit of anyone interested, these are my tentative conclusions. Please correct me if I've misunderstood anything. Sciter is a small company (single person ?) project, but the list of enterprise clients is an assurance. Their flavor of Javascript (TIscript) diverged from ECMAScipt more than 10 years ago, so there would be syntax switching involved when developing in Sciter and doing normal web development in parallel. There are similar issues with the DOM and CSS. But the list of included libraries certainly look like it could compensate for some of that, with implementations that can mimic modern features like promises and CSS3 transitions. [1] Also, as far as I can see it is not truly cross-platform, i.e. it can not easily be deployed to mobile. Pricing (even if fair comparatively) and the closed source is also a roadblock (for me). There was a thread by the author on Reddit some time back that vented the idea of open-sourcing the library. That could tip the balance (for me). [2] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13057526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13057526 [1] https://sciter.com/download/ https://sciter.com/download/ [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/a8vkzm/sciternode_as_an_alternative_to_electron/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/a8vkzm/scitern...

notRobot 6y ago
Relevant article by Sciter's author: "Making Sciter Open Source" https://terrainformatica.com/2019/09/13/making-sciter-open-source/ https://terrainformatica.com/2019/09/13/making-sciter-open-s...
fabian2k 6y ago
Using a Javscript dialect is a huge disadvantage in my opinion. I have worked with a similar dialect, and even if the language is pretty close to Javascript, a huge issue is that it breaks all tools and editors you would usually use. You have to rely entirely on the developers of that dialect to supply the tools you need. And this situation only gets worse over time, as you're decoupled from the improvements of the language. Especially once there are a bunch of changes in the dialect that conflict with later developments of the parent language. My experience is also that there is inevitably more friction than you might expect when integrating libraries from the parent language. For me this would be an immediate dealbreaker, it's just not worth it to tie yourself to a small dialect like this.
LockAndLol 6y ago
Out of curiosity, do you use a rich editor or do you insert those links like that yourself?
- kroltan 6y ago
  Not GP, but I do that manually. Inline links often get in the way of the content, if you're using them as reference or support material. I still use inline links if it's central to the point of the comment.
- stareatgoats 6y ago
  yes, what kroltan said. Picked it up around here, don't really use it anywhere else.

notRobot 6y ago

Relevant article by Sciter's author: "Making Sciter Open Source" https://terrainformatica.com/2019/09/13/making-sciter-open-source/ https://terrainformatica.com/2019/09/13/making-sciter-open-s...

fabian2k 6y ago

Using a Javscript dialect is a huge disadvantage in my opinion. I have worked with a similar dialect, and even if the language is pretty close to Javascript, a huge issue is that it breaks all tools and editors you would usually use. You have to rely entirely on the developers of that dialect to supply the tools you need. And this situation only gets worse over time, as you're decoupled from the improvements of the language. Especially once there are a bunch of changes in the dialect that conflict with later developments of the parent language. My experience is also that there is inevitably more friction than you might expect when integrating libraries from the parent language. For me this would be an immediate dealbreaker, it's just not worth it to tie yourself to a small dialect like this.

LockAndLol 6y ago

Out of curiosity, do you use a rich editor or do you insert those links like that yourself?

kroltan 6y ago
Not GP, but I do that manually. Inline links often get in the way of the content, if you're using them as reference or support material. I still use inline links if it's central to the point of the comment.
stareatgoats 6y ago
yes, what kroltan said. Picked it up around here, don't really use it anywhere else.