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One nit to pick, Slack on iOS is apparently fully native: https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/931599784137363459 https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/9315997841373

One nit to pick, Slack on iOS is apparently fully native: https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/931599784137363459 https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/931599784137363459 I think this shows, in my opinion, how little native vs. web/electron actually matters to overall quality. You can generally make a smooth, fast, bug-free app on any platform. Or not... I used to use the Android version and I was never quite sure whether it was native or not. I couldn't think of a way to tell.

saagarjha 6y ago
Slack on macOS is Electron. Slack on iOS is native, and their app wasn't actually all that bad until they redesigned it a couple months ago and made it really, really bad :(
- m-ee 6y ago
  I’m still not over the fact that notifications on my phone don’t clear when I view the message on my computer, and this is by design because of some other big fix. It’s been almost a year https://www.reddit.com/r/Slack/comments/dfmuhj/issue_with_ios_notifications/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body https://www.reddit.com/r/Slack/comments/dfmuhj/issue_with_io...
twhb 6y ago
You can make a bad native app, but you can’t make a good Electron app. Edit to add: Lots of people are mentioning Visual Studio Code. I agree it’s a good app in many dimensions; I didn’t mean to say that an Electron app can’t be good in some ways, even in the most important ways, but rather that Electron introduces flaws that prevent the app from being good in all ways. In particular, while faster than most Electron apps it’s still sluggish on old devices. It still loses track of files when renamed unless you do the rename through Visual Studio Code. The UI elements aren’t as polished as native let alone consistent with it, settings aren’t synced and backed up to iCloud, system-wide keyboard settings aren’t obeyed, Quick Look previews aren’t provided, etc. All of these problems were either introduced by Electron or made more difficult by it.
- josephg 6y ago
  VS code is really good. Somehow it feels way better to program in than Xcode does. But I don’t know any other electron apps that feel responsive. Slack, discord, Notion... all super simple apps which respond like molasses.
  - chadcmulligan 6y ago
    There are better choices than both of these imho - Appcode and Jetbrains for example.
    - anaisbetts 6y ago
      If your example of "Good native application" is AppCode, you're beyond saving lol
      - chadcmulligan 6y ago
        thats a bit harsh - Appcode is a java app but better than Xcode and VSCode, and java is a step up from electron in performance. Xcode is faster but lacks a lot of features that Appcode has. If you want fast native development then I recommend Delphi - but that is not PC either.
    - cageface 6y ago
      BitWig audio is a Java UI and is quite competitive with the native DAWs.
- dangus 6y ago
  Only takes one counter-example to dismantle this method of thought. ...........VSCode
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Is there another?
philistine 6y ago
Slack, renown for horrible app performance, should never be an example in any discussion about underlying architecture. It seems poor performance is a core value at the company.
- etaioinshrdlu 6y ago
  I think that's a bit unfair to Slack. I've been using it for 5 years now and it's one of the most dependable apps I've ever used. When you consider how many messages and rich content it's handling, I think they are doing a fairly decent job. I wouldn't call it slow either. If anything my biggest beef with slack is sometimes the cross-device syncing isn't perfect. And I'm unable to use it offline at all.
  - sutterbomb 6y ago
    Slack is hands down the worst app I’ve ever used in environments that aren’t very high latency.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    > When you consider how many messages and rich content it's handling, I think they are doing a fairly decent job. "handling" Sending and receiving is something for a background thread to spend a fraction of a percent of a CPU core on. The amount on-screen at any time is tiny, and should not take a significant amount of resources on a modern computer. If it's rendering a thousand off-screen rich content messages, that's not impressive, that's it being coded badly.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    I am also a daily user, because it is part of my job requirements to be accessible via Slack, as such it only has a presence on the devices that belong to my employer.
robenkleene 6y ago
I wouldn’t read into that tweet because Electron doesn’t even support iOS, so saying they “do not use Electron” is equivalent to saying nothing.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  It's native. Or at least it was last I checked, before they did their redesign.
  - robenkleene 6y ago
    How do you evaluate that? (Assuming you don't work for Slack).

saagarjha 6y ago

Slack on macOS is Electron. Slack on iOS is native, and their app wasn't actually all that bad until they redesigned it a couple months ago and made it really, really bad :(

m-ee 6y ago
I’m still not over the fact that notifications on my phone don’t clear when I view the message on my computer, and this is by design because of some other big fix. It’s been almost a year https://www.reddit.com/r/Slack/comments/dfmuhj/issue_with_ios_notifications/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body https://www.reddit.com/r/Slack/comments/dfmuhj/issue_with_io...

twhb 6y ago

You can make a bad native app, but you can’t make a good Electron app. Edit to add: Lots of people are mentioning Visual Studio Code. I agree it’s a good app in many dimensions; I didn’t mean to say that an Electron app can’t be good in some ways, even in the most important ways, but rather that Electron introduces flaws that prevent the app from being good in all ways. In particular, while faster than most Electron apps it’s still sluggish on old devices. It still loses track of files when renamed unless you do the rename through Visual Studio Code. The UI elements aren’t as polished as native let alone consistent with it, settings aren’t synced and backed up to iCloud, system-wide keyboard settings aren’t obeyed, Quick Look previews aren’t provided, etc. All of these problems were either introduced by Electron or made more difficult by it.

josephg 6y ago
VS code is really good. Somehow it feels way better to program in than Xcode does. But I don’t know any other electron apps that feel responsive. Slack, discord, Notion... all super simple apps which respond like molasses.
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  There are better choices than both of these imho - Appcode and Jetbrains for example.
  - anaisbetts 6y ago
    If your example of "Good native application" is AppCode, you're beyond saving lol
    - chadcmulligan 6y ago
      thats a bit harsh - Appcode is a java app but better than Xcode and VSCode, and java is a step up from electron in performance. Xcode is faster but lacks a lot of features that Appcode has. If you want fast native development then I recommend Delphi - but that is not PC either.
  - cageface 6y ago
    BitWig audio is a Java UI and is quite competitive with the native DAWs.
dangus 6y ago
Only takes one counter-example to dismantle this method of thought. ...........VSCode
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Is there another?

philistine 6y ago

Slack, renown for horrible app performance, should never be an example in any discussion about underlying architecture. It seems poor performance is a core value at the company.

etaioinshrdlu 6y ago
I think that's a bit unfair to Slack. I've been using it for 5 years now and it's one of the most dependable apps I've ever used. When you consider how many messages and rich content it's handling, I think they are doing a fairly decent job. I wouldn't call it slow either. If anything my biggest beef with slack is sometimes the cross-device syncing isn't perfect. And I'm unable to use it offline at all.
- sutterbomb 6y ago
  Slack is hands down the worst app I’ve ever used in environments that aren’t very high latency.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  > When you consider how many messages and rich content it's handling, I think they are doing a fairly decent job. "handling" Sending and receiving is something for a background thread to spend a fraction of a percent of a CPU core on. The amount on-screen at any time is tiny, and should not take a significant amount of resources on a modern computer. If it's rendering a thousand off-screen rich content messages, that's not impressive, that's it being coded badly.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  I am also a daily user, because it is part of my job requirements to be accessible via Slack, as such it only has a presence on the devices that belong to my employer.

robenkleene 6y ago

I wouldn’t read into that tweet because Electron doesn’t even support iOS, so saying they “do not use Electron” is equivalent to saying nothing.

saagarjha 6y ago
It's native. Or at least it was last I checked, before they did their redesign.
- robenkleene 6y ago
  How do you evaluate that? (Assuming you don't work for Slack).