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Electron hate is starting to become such a meme lately.

by bluedays 6y ago

Karunamon 6y ago
Many would argue that Electron itself is a meme. An unfunny one that gets repeated at the user’s expense ad nauseam.
- azinman2 6y ago
  Isn’t VSCode electron? Somehow Microsoft ended up with an electron app that doesn’t have all the hallmarks of what people complain about. What was done differently?
  - Karunamon 6y ago
    Probably as something made for developers, it was created to be fast and efficient and avoid sucking down inordinate amounts of resources. Rather than the usual reason electron apps get made, which is because they’re “easy” and allow web-first devs to put out acceptable-quality desktop apps with no mind paid to those same concerns. It is entirely possible to release good software with electron. It is also entirely possible to win the lottery. (Bitter and annoyed? Me?)
    - Narishma 6y ago
      > Probably as something made for developers, it was created to be fast and efficient and avoid sucking down inordinate amounts of resources. That's not a given. Just look at the bloated monstrosity that is Visual Studio.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    One of the biggest things people complain about with Electron apps is their slowness. When I started using VSCode, it was perfectly snappy and I could see what people were talking about when they said, "But VSCode is Electron, and it's fine — it's just crappy developers." After about six months of using it and loading in fewer than ten extensions, it has become very laggy. To the point that I have had to train myself to pause my typing after I press certain key combinations while the system catches up. VSCode is great, but it's not a poster child for Electron.
    - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
      Yeah, VSCode did that thing where a great product seems to just become worse, for no obvious reason.
      - isochronous 6y ago
        The reason IS obvious: It's called "feature bloat." That being said, unless you install a bunch of extensions, VS Code is still pretty snappy, at least on all of my computers.
  - mattgreenrocks 6y ago
    They cared? Desktop is fundamentally a different medium from web. It's a pipe dream to expect the web mentality to just transfer over. It's akin to saying a webdev is a great gamedev because they can write code.
  - jbay808 6y ago
    I once couldn't start VSCode because my internet was offline. Turns out it was an electron bug. (This issue: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/7570 https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/7570 ). I've been suspicious of electron ever since.
potta_coffee 6y ago
It just runs contrary to a lot of people's ideals for software. I don't spend my time thinking about Electron much but I don't care for it either. I guess it just rankles that it's really the easiest cross-platform solution we have.
- bluedays 6y ago
  Just feels like a cheap way to get Internet karma to compare old apps to modern apps made with Electron.
  - mosselman 6y ago
    So it’s cheap to say that old-Winamp does the same with let’s say 1-10% of the resources that a remake in electron does? How so? Isn’t it interesting from a historical perspective? Can’t we learn from history? If anything history could be an anchor point for where we can go back to or it can tell us that if we just try harder we can achieve more. How is that cheap? If anything it is powerful to keep reminding ourselves that we can do better as an industry and that we shouldn’t settle for mediocrity.
    - bluedays 6y ago
      It's interesting until you see the 10th comment comparing some old software against Electron. Then it comes meme-y.
reaperducer 6y ago
Electron hate is starting to become such a meme lately. I used to think the same thing until a couple of weeks ago when an Electron app crashed and took down every other Electron app on my computer. I thought these things were supposed to be sandboxed.

Electron hate is starting to become such a meme lately.

Karunamon 6y ago

Many would argue that Electron itself is a meme. An unfunny one that gets repeated at the user’s expense ad nauseam.

azinman2 6y ago
Isn’t VSCode electron? Somehow Microsoft ended up with an electron app that doesn’t have all the hallmarks of what people complain about. What was done differently?
- Karunamon 6y ago
  Probably as something made for developers, it was created to be fast and efficient and avoid sucking down inordinate amounts of resources. Rather than the usual reason electron apps get made, which is because they’re “easy” and allow web-first devs to put out acceptable-quality desktop apps with no mind paid to those same concerns. It is entirely possible to release good software with electron. It is also entirely possible to win the lottery. (Bitter and annoyed? Me?)
  - Narishma 6y ago
    > Probably as something made for developers, it was created to be fast and efficient and avoid sucking down inordinate amounts of resources. That's not a given. Just look at the bloated monstrosity that is Visual Studio.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  One of the biggest things people complain about with Electron apps is their slowness. When I started using VSCode, it was perfectly snappy and I could see what people were talking about when they said, "But VSCode is Electron, and it's fine — it's just crappy developers." After about six months of using it and loading in fewer than ten extensions, it has become very laggy. To the point that I have had to train myself to pause my typing after I press certain key combinations while the system catches up. VSCode is great, but it's not a poster child for Electron.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
    Yeah, VSCode did that thing where a great product seems to just become worse, for no obvious reason.
    - isochronous 6y ago
      The reason IS obvious: It's called "feature bloat." That being said, unless you install a bunch of extensions, VS Code is still pretty snappy, at least on all of my computers.
- mattgreenrocks 6y ago
  They cared? Desktop is fundamentally a different medium from web. It's a pipe dream to expect the web mentality to just transfer over. It's akin to saying a webdev is a great gamedev because they can write code.
- jbay808 6y ago
  I once couldn't start VSCode because my internet was offline. Turns out it was an electron bug. (This issue: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/7570 https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/7570 ). I've been suspicious of electron ever since.

potta_coffee 6y ago

It just runs contrary to a lot of people's ideals for software. I don't spend my time thinking about Electron much but I don't care for it either. I guess it just rankles that it's really the easiest cross-platform solution we have.

bluedays 6y ago
Just feels like a cheap way to get Internet karma to compare old apps to modern apps made with Electron.
- mosselman 6y ago
  So it’s cheap to say that old-Winamp does the same with let’s say 1-10% of the resources that a remake in electron does? How so? Isn’t it interesting from a historical perspective? Can’t we learn from history? If anything history could be an anchor point for where we can go back to or it can tell us that if we just try harder we can achieve more. How is that cheap? If anything it is powerful to keep reminding ourselves that we can do better as an industry and that we shouldn’t settle for mediocrity.
  - bluedays 6y ago
    It's interesting until you see the 10th comment comparing some old software against Electron. Then it comes meme-y.

reaperducer 6y ago

Electron hate is starting to become such a meme lately. I used to think the same thing until a couple of weeks ago when an Electron app crashed and took down every other Electron app on my computer. I thought these things were supposed to be sandboxed.