3 ms·

It really surprised me when I downloaded Godot only to get a 32MB binary. Snappy as hell. Web apps masquerading as desktop apps are terribly slow and it's a su

by ljm 6y ago

It really surprised me when I downloaded Godot only to get a 32MB binary. Snappy as hell. Web apps masquerading as desktop apps are terribly slow and it's a surprise we've got so used to it. My slack client takes a few seconds to launch, then it has a loading screen, and quite often it will refresh itself (blanking out the screen and doing a full-blown re-render) without warning. This is before it starts spinning the fans when trying to scroll up a thread, and all of the other awkward and inconsistent pieces of UI thrown in there. Never mind having to download a 500MB package just to use a glorified IRC client. I'm really enjoying writing code outside of the browser realm where I can care a lot more about resource usage, using languages and tools that help achieve that.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
It's interesting to compare Ripcord[0] to Slack. Ripcord is a third-party desktop client for Slack and Discord. It has something like 80% of features of the official Slack client and a simpler UI (arguably better, more information-dense), but it's also a good two orders of magnitude lighter and snappier. And it also handles Discord at the same time. -- [0] - https://cancel.fm/ripcord/ https://cancel.fm/ripcord/
- jcelerier 6y ago
  and is written by a single person, in Qt
- MivLives 6y ago
  I wish so much that 3rd party clients weren't directly against the TOS of Discord. I sorta miss the old days where it seemed like anyone could hook up to MSN/Yahoo/AIM.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    I wish that too. More than that, I keep wondering whether there could be a way to force companies to interop, because right now you generally can't, without getting into some sort of business relationship with these companies. That's the problem with services - they take control of interop, and the extent to which interop is allowed is controlled by contracts between service providers.
  - tumult 6y ago
    Where in the terms of service does it say that third party clients are disallowed? (It doesn’t.)
    - MivLives 6y ago
      While it does not explicitly state that, it does say: "(ii) copy, adapt, modify, prepare derivative works based upon, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, attempt to discover any source code, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise exploit the Service or any portion of the Service, except as expressly permitted in these Terms;" [1] Given that the API is not public if you are not using a bot key, I would think that using it with a third party client would take some form of reverse engineering. The devs also stated that other client modifications like betterDiscord are against the TOS. [1]https://discord.com/terms https://discord.com/terms (Under Right To Use The Service)
      - tumult 6y ago
        Ripcord isn't a modification of their software. It's an original implementation. I didn't look at any of their code.
- tuananh 6y ago
  ripcord is amazing. I bought it right away because in its current form, it's already worth the money
mathw 6y ago
Just remember that it's entirely possible to do awkward and inconsistent UI in native apps, and there's a very long tradition of it. But at least it's generally faster when you do it!
udbhavs 6y ago
LMMS (https://lmms.io/ https://lmms.io/) is a full blown DAW that's only 33MB as well

by ljm 6y ago

TeMPOraL 6y ago

It's interesting to compare Ripcord[0] to Slack. Ripcord is a third-party desktop client for Slack and Discord. It has something like 80% of features of the official Slack client and a simpler UI (arguably better, more information-dense), but it's also a good two orders of magnitude lighter and snappier. And it also handles Discord at the same time. -- [0] - https://cancel.fm/ripcord/ https://cancel.fm/ripcord/

jcelerier 6y ago
and is written by a single person, in Qt
MivLives 6y ago
I wish so much that 3rd party clients weren't directly against the TOS of Discord. I sorta miss the old days where it seemed like anyone could hook up to MSN/Yahoo/AIM.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  I wish that too. More than that, I keep wondering whether there could be a way to force companies to interop, because right now you generally can't, without getting into some sort of business relationship with these companies. That's the problem with services - they take control of interop, and the extent to which interop is allowed is controlled by contracts between service providers.
- tumult 6y ago
  Where in the terms of service does it say that third party clients are disallowed? (It doesn’t.)
  - MivLives 6y ago
    While it does not explicitly state that, it does say: "(ii) copy, adapt, modify, prepare derivative works based upon, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, attempt to discover any source code, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise exploit the Service or any portion of the Service, except as expressly permitted in these Terms;" [1] Given that the API is not public if you are not using a bot key, I would think that using it with a third party client would take some form of reverse engineering. The devs also stated that other client modifications like betterDiscord are against the TOS. [1]https://discord.com/terms https://discord.com/terms (Under Right To Use The Service)
    - tumult 6y ago
      Ripcord isn't a modification of their software. It's an original implementation. I didn't look at any of their code.
tuananh 6y ago
ripcord is amazing. I bought it right away because in its current form, it's already worth the money

mathw 6y ago

Just remember that it's entirely possible to do awkward and inconsistent UI in native apps, and there's a very long tradition of it. But at least it's generally faster when you do it!

udbhavs 6y ago

LMMS (https://lmms.io/ https://lmms.io/) is a full blown DAW that's only 33MB as well