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Most users don't have to switch between platforms but those who are obligated to do like I was, consistency cross-platform is removing a level of friction. Most

Most users don't have to switch between platforms but those who are obligated to do like I was, consistency cross-platform is removing a level of friction. Most of the time $work provides me Windows and I run my personal laptops on Linux (mostly Fedora) for the last 10 years. Some of my colleagues were running OS X. It was messy to switch context all the time to explain, learn or replicate stuffs when you are not in a IT/SE environment or even tech-savvy places. One lab we had people on Windows/OS X/various Linux distributions for office desktops and calculation servers on Linux distributions. When software are not consistent across platforms, it results on a lot of friction and lost time in meaningless conversations about "How to do X/Y". The only time I am ok with inconsistent cross-platform is between desktop/mobile because the UX and means of interaction are fundamentally different. Electron is a middle ground (that if I can avoid it is better) but sometimes ease to use prevail on ressource-hungry applications. The other alternatives (imgui, vulkan, etc.) seems complicated at best and I am not familiar in of with GTK/Qt port on Windows/OS X to know if they are a pain in the ass to develop with.

luckylion 6y ago
That's a good point, developers/sysadmins/IT and adjacent jobs in general may be a sizable exception. Most "normal" users are usually running very homogeneous systems (the average office worker doesn't get to choose whether they want a Mac Book, a Windows PC or a Linux workstation), where the difference would only be between work & private computer use - but I think, most people (again, developers and maybe designers excluded) have little overlap in the tools they use at work and at home. Electron is the native-ish sequel to the everything-is-a-web-app movement, I suppose. That has similar motivations (also makes everything no-install, super portable), and for plenty of tasks it's good enough, as computers these days are massively over-powered for lots of general tasks.

luckylion 6y ago

That's a good point, developers/sysadmins/IT and adjacent jobs in general may be a sizable exception. Most "normal" users are usually running very homogeneous systems (the average office worker doesn't get to choose whether they want a Mac Book, a Windows PC or a Linux workstation), where the difference would only be between work & private computer use - but I think, most people (again, developers and maybe designers excluded) have little overlap in the tools they use at work and at home. Electron is the native-ish sequel to the everything-is-a-web-app movement, I suppose. That has similar motivations (also makes everything no-install, super portable), and for plenty of tasks it's good enough, as computers these days are massively over-powered for lots of general tasks.