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Yes but the counter argument here is that games are all extremely custom anyway and it makes sense for them to render their UI completely from scratch in a blan

Yes but the counter argument here is that games are all extremely custom anyway and it makes sense for them to render their UI completely from scratch in a blank canvas. For typical applications the blank canvas/from scratch approach does not result in the best outcome. Each platform has HIGs, native UI toolkits etc and those are what should be used, I assume that's what the parent is getting at.

_pdp_ 6y ago
And who is best to decide what is best for the application but the developer who created it? If I want to create an app that looks like a game and just happen not to run fullscreen why should we even discuss conformity with native UIs as a feature? The user have the right not to bother installing the software if they don't like it. The whole argument is just silly. Are shell scripts native? And if my compiled binary prints a control character in the terminal screen that is not supported by the terminal you use, does that mean that the binary is not native because it does not conform with the expected behaviour? I know that I am not convincing anyone with this comment but it is fascinating to see people having such a constrained view on software. Software is what you make out of it and sometimes its weird looks and behaviour is what makes it special. There are many such examples. Let's drop this "not native" argument and simply talk about not having the same performance because JavaScript is interpreted.
- vertex-four 6y ago
  > And who is best to decide what is best for the application but the developer who created it? Probably a UX researcher.
- K0nserv 6y ago
  Of course everyone is free to build apps in whichever way they want, others are free to take issue with it. My argument here is that these "blank canvas" cross platform UI toolkits are trading an improved developer experience for hard to spot, but very real, user experience issues. A very concrete way in which many "blank canvas" cross platform UI fails the user is accessibility especially on platforms that are renowned and used for their good accessibility like iOS. There's also memory and energy consumption concerns with solutions that abstract over native tooling at the cost of increased memory and energy use, you could argue this is unethical or at least needlessly limits your addressable market by locking out segments of world. Not all users are in charge of the apps they have to use either so the argument that they can chose to not install an app doesn't hold water.
  - _pdp_ 6y ago
    The iOS SDKs provide a number of features that increase developer productivity, many of which are related accessibility because this is what iOS SDKs are all about. It is not like the iOS OS automatically does all of the work for you, it is the libraries and how you use them! Without the libraries, you have to implement these features yourself. Equally, the web platform increases developer productivity by providing an easy to use cross-platform UI libraries you can use whichever way you like. The leverage is different - it is still leverage no different than the iOS SDKs. Without these libraries, you have to write it all by yourself. We are looking at the same thing from two different angles, hence why I find the argument silly. Everything is native if not emulated. We can argue about performance or the conformity with style guides and UX best practices but to brush off the web as irrelevant software development platform is crazy given that you can attribute a lot of the progress we made over the recent history due to the progress and standardization of web technologies. There is still a lot to do but, guess what, to create an open cross-platform programming environment with such a large adoption is a pretty difficult task. From a UX perspective, there is frankly no particular reason for all apps to look and behave the same. Your browser is open 100% of the time, it occupies 30-50% of the screen estate, yet 99% of the UX is custom and significant changes from one web page to another. I don't think that bothers anyone. > There's also memory and energy consumption concerns with solutions that abstract over native tooling I agree that the web can be made greener but you can write an equally sloppy app with Swift and Objective-C. But here is the question for which I have no answer. Is it ethical to write the same software in 3 different ways due to platform differences and does that contribute to a larger carbon footprint than one app that is written sloppily with web technologies? Maybe we will never know but it is an interesting question don't you think? > Not all users are in charge of the apps they have to use either so the argument that they can chose to not install an app doesn't hold water. And luckily no one is in charge of what software people should write and how they should write it.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  > why should we even discuss conformity with native UIs as a feature? accessibility, integration with the user's workflow, accessibility, consistent theming, accessibility, interface coherency, accessibility...
- ComputerGuru 6y ago
  Javascript being interpreted is not a big deal for most UI (it's not like your code has to be in JS, it just needs to interop with it for the UI) and JS has been optimized more than most languages (eg it'll run circles around "desktop" languages like Python that don't ffi to C libraries). The problem is the non-nativeness of it more than anything else. It's also what brings the bloat and the slowdowns because everything is reimplemented from scratch.
api 6y ago
Something like this is what we need: https://github.com/andlabs/libui https://github.com/andlabs/libui Unfortunately it's a one man band. The author has done great work but it has little support. IMHO it's the only sane UI effort for desktop in the world.
- timw4mail 6y ago
  There's a few native widget abstraction libraries. * Libui is newer, and uses C * wxWidgets is relatively ancient, and is written in C++ * Qt is sort of in the same ballpark, but relies on platform themes rather than native widgets

_pdp_ 6y ago

And who is best to decide what is best for the application but the developer who created it? If I want to create an app that looks like a game and just happen not to run fullscreen why should we even discuss conformity with native UIs as a feature? The user have the right not to bother installing the software if they don't like it. The whole argument is just silly. Are shell scripts native? And if my compiled binary prints a control character in the terminal screen that is not supported by the terminal you use, does that mean that the binary is not native because it does not conform with the expected behaviour? I know that I am not convincing anyone with this comment but it is fascinating to see people having such a constrained view on software. Software is what you make out of it and sometimes its weird looks and behaviour is what makes it special. There are many such examples. Let's drop this "not native" argument and simply talk about not having the same performance because JavaScript is interpreted.

vertex-four 6y ago
> And who is best to decide what is best for the application but the developer who created it? Probably a UX researcher.
K0nserv 6y ago
Of course everyone is free to build apps in whichever way they want, others are free to take issue with it. My argument here is that these "blank canvas" cross platform UI toolkits are trading an improved developer experience for hard to spot, but very real, user experience issues. A very concrete way in which many "blank canvas" cross platform UI fails the user is accessibility especially on platforms that are renowned and used for their good accessibility like iOS. There's also memory and energy consumption concerns with solutions that abstract over native tooling at the cost of increased memory and energy use, you could argue this is unethical or at least needlessly limits your addressable market by locking out segments of world. Not all users are in charge of the apps they have to use either so the argument that they can chose to not install an app doesn't hold water.
- _pdp_ 6y ago
  The iOS SDKs provide a number of features that increase developer productivity, many of which are related accessibility because this is what iOS SDKs are all about. It is not like the iOS OS automatically does all of the work for you, it is the libraries and how you use them! Without the libraries, you have to implement these features yourself. Equally, the web platform increases developer productivity by providing an easy to use cross-platform UI libraries you can use whichever way you like. The leverage is different - it is still leverage no different than the iOS SDKs. Without these libraries, you have to write it all by yourself. We are looking at the same thing from two different angles, hence why I find the argument silly. Everything is native if not emulated. We can argue about performance or the conformity with style guides and UX best practices but to brush off the web as irrelevant software development platform is crazy given that you can attribute a lot of the progress we made over the recent history due to the progress and standardization of web technologies. There is still a lot to do but, guess what, to create an open cross-platform programming environment with such a large adoption is a pretty difficult task. From a UX perspective, there is frankly no particular reason for all apps to look and behave the same. Your browser is open 100% of the time, it occupies 30-50% of the screen estate, yet 99% of the UX is custom and significant changes from one web page to another. I don't think that bothers anyone. > There's also memory and energy consumption concerns with solutions that abstract over native tooling I agree that the web can be made greener but you can write an equally sloppy app with Swift and Objective-C. But here is the question for which I have no answer. Is it ethical to write the same software in 3 different ways due to platform differences and does that contribute to a larger carbon footprint than one app that is written sloppily with web technologies? Maybe we will never know but it is an interesting question don't you think? > Not all users are in charge of the apps they have to use either so the argument that they can chose to not install an app doesn't hold water. And luckily no one is in charge of what software people should write and how they should write it.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> why should we even discuss conformity with native UIs as a feature? accessibility, integration with the user's workflow, accessibility, consistent theming, accessibility, interface coherency, accessibility...
ComputerGuru 6y ago
Javascript being interpreted is not a big deal for most UI (it's not like your code has to be in JS, it just needs to interop with it for the UI) and JS has been optimized more than most languages (eg it'll run circles around "desktop" languages like Python that don't ffi to C libraries). The problem is the non-nativeness of it more than anything else. It's also what brings the bloat and the slowdowns because everything is reimplemented from scratch.

api 6y ago

Something like this is what we need: https://github.com/andlabs/libui https://github.com/andlabs/libui Unfortunately it's a one man band. The author has done great work but it has little support. IMHO it's the only sane UI effort for desktop in the world.

timw4mail 6y ago
There's a few native widget abstraction libraries. * Libui is newer, and uses C * wxWidgets is relatively ancient, and is written in C++ * Qt is sort of in the same ballpark, but relies on platform themes rather than native widgets