6 ms·

Why Is Slack Still So Terrible?

11 points by Fiveplus 6y ago

jamil7 6y ago
It's also still very slow. But apparently not slow enough for anyone to do anything about it. We seem to have just accepted sluggish UIs these days.
maxharris 6y ago
Why is Slack still an Electron app? I stopped using it because it's so slow. Native apps are fast.
- onion2k 6y ago
  Whether an app is fast or not is usually down to the person who wrote it and their skill in optimizing code rather than the technology it was made with. For example, VSCode is Electron and it's pretty fast out of the box (so long as you've not weighed it down with plugins).
  - maxharris 6y ago
    You do have a point, but what about the combined overhead one suffers from running a lot of Electron apps all at once? This year, I dumped all of the Electron apps I used to use. I have also stopped developing for the browser altogether (I learned Swift and Metal for the project I'm working on), and my MacBook Pro is truly an unladen swallow now.
  - jamil7 6y ago
    You're mostly right, although people tend to hold VSCode up as an example and I don't personally find it to be fast app but it's fast in the context of Electron apps.
    - aargh_aargh 6y ago
      the one-eyed man is king
onion2k 6y ago
I think the "Search is broken" point hints towards the author using Slack in a different way to me. I rarely search. I don't even have conversations about things I'd want to search later in Slack. I use Slack exclusively for things that are ephemeral - for things like checking in with my team or getting an opinion about something - if there's actual technical decisions being made or useful information being shared I pull that stuff out to Clubhouse or Github or an email. Maybe if I was more invested in Slack and doing more things in it than just chat I'd agree that it's bad, but right now I don't mind it.
rvz 6y ago
The answer: Electron. Always. What is also baffling is that a multi-billion dollar company with hundreds of employees is unable to create a cross-platform native desktop app, yet it takes ONE PERSON [0] to create a desktop client for Slack and Discord. The fact that Slack is already 'optimising' Electron via offloading / rewriting JS code in C++ / Rust tells me that JS will never give them the performance requirements they need. For Slack there are no more excuses to try the Qt option. [0] https://cancel.fm/ripcord/ https://cancel.fm/ripcord/
- Fiveplus 6y ago
  what language is ripcord written in?
  - rvz 6y ago
    C++
nunez 6y ago
Everything the author is complaining about is done even more poorly on Teams, which is the de facto “modern” communication solution in the enterprise.

11 points by Fiveplus 6y ago

It's also still very slow. But apparently not slow enough for anyone to do anything about it. We seem to have just accepted sluggish UIs these days.

maxharris 6y ago

Why is Slack still an Electron app? I stopped using it because it's so slow. Native apps are fast.

onion2k 6y ago
Whether an app is fast or not is usually down to the person who wrote it and their skill in optimizing code rather than the technology it was made with. For example, VSCode is Electron and it's pretty fast out of the box (so long as you've not weighed it down with plugins).
- maxharris 6y ago
  You do have a point, but what about the combined overhead one suffers from running a lot of Electron apps all at once? This year, I dumped all of the Electron apps I used to use. I have also stopped developing for the browser altogether (I learned Swift and Metal for the project I'm working on), and my MacBook Pro is truly an unladen swallow now.
- jamil7 6y ago
  You're mostly right, although people tend to hold VSCode up as an example and I don't personally find it to be fast app but it's fast in the context of Electron apps.
  - aargh_aargh 6y ago
    the one-eyed man is king

onion2k 6y ago

I think the "Search is broken" point hints towards the author using Slack in a different way to me. I rarely search. I don't even have conversations about things I'd want to search later in Slack. I use Slack exclusively for things that are ephemeral - for things like checking in with my team or getting an opinion about something - if there's actual technical decisions being made or useful information being shared I pull that stuff out to Clubhouse or Github or an email. Maybe if I was more invested in Slack and doing more things in it than just chat I'd agree that it's bad, but right now I don't mind it.

rvz 6y ago

The answer: Electron. Always. What is also baffling is that a multi-billion dollar company with hundreds of employees is unable to create a cross-platform native desktop app, yet it takes ONE PERSON [0] to create a desktop client for Slack and Discord. The fact that Slack is already 'optimising' Electron via offloading / rewriting JS code in C++ / Rust tells me that JS will never give them the performance requirements they need. For Slack there are no more excuses to try the Qt option. [0] https://cancel.fm/ripcord/ https://cancel.fm/ripcord/

Fiveplus 6y ago
what language is ripcord written in?
- rvz 6y ago
  C++

nunez 6y ago

Everything the author is complaining about is done even more poorly on Teams, which is the de facto “modern” communication solution in the enterprise.