4 ms·

If only the issue was limited to Electron... I often feel like Electron is more a declaration of defeat, like: hey no matter where you look at, software bloat k

by Jare 6y ago

If only the issue was limited to Electron... I often feel like Electron is more a declaration of defeat, like: hey no matter where you look at, software bloat keeps eating the precious advances in power provided by hardware. So let's at least get some comfort and value out of that. (Electron does put multiplatform desktop development within reach of 100x more developers than Qt/etc)

qz2 6y ago
I installed windows NT in a virtual machine for kicks a few months back. Then installed office 97 on it. If you do that and open slack immediately afterwards it feels painful instantly. The difference in how it feels is quite scary.
- johnisgood 6y ago
  Partly we can thank this to the "throw more hardware at it" mentality and "lowering the barrier to entry" where noobs create the stuff a lot of us use. People can say all they want that it is good to lower the barrier entry, but that comes with a price. The price that others have to pay when we use their crapware. As long as it is not mandatory though, it is fine, but when it becomes mandatory, it becomes an issue.
  - cannedslime 6y ago
    Its your choice to use others "crapware". The price it comes with is all the abuse "noobs" have to take for offering their solutions for free. You don't like HTML frontends, thats sweet, then make your own alternative with Qt or winforms. There is NO "mandatory" electron apps... But there is some great software made with electron that has become very popular. I am confident if something has been made with electron, there is native alternatives out there. Don't like slack? Then use IRC. Don't like my joystick to keyboard/mouse remapper with an electron frontend? Then don't, use one of the many alternatives (Too bad if they don't provide what you are looking for and no one of them seems to be able to modulate output in order to emulate analog controls. But at least it was written by a pro!)
    - johnisgood 6y ago
      I mentioned in my last sentence that as long as it is not mandatory, it is OK, but there are cases where it is mandatory, e.g. at the workplace. I do not use Slack. I use self-hosted Mattermost as a replacement of Slack, I use IRC, and I use Element (formerly known as Riot.im).
      - cannedslime 6y ago
        Well, you will never get around being forced to use something in your workplace. I would never use Cisco VPNs but I had to install their shitty client in every workplace I ever been on.
    - anoncake 6y ago
      > I am confident if something has been made with electron, there is native alternatives out there. Don't like slack? Then use IRC. That only works if you can control what others use (maybe not in the case of Slack, but that's the exception as messengers go).
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >Partly we can thank this to the "throw more hardware at it" mentality and "lowering the barrier to entry" where noobs create the stuff a lot of us use. What people don't understand is that it's not a "mentality", it's an economic imperative. It makes sense, business wise, to "throw more hardware at it", and "lowering the barrier to entry" obviously also means that somebody can develop something with lower costs/faster time to market. It's not a question of spoiled devs. It's a question of savvy business people. People not understanding this don't understand how economics works.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
As someone who switches between Windows and macOS, I'd rather every app I use be Electron and available on both OS than native and only available on one. Native does basically nothing for me that matters when it comes to accomplishing things. Just OS lock-in. Loading a little faster or being a little snappier is a small consolation.
- john_alan 6y ago
  Wel native is important for me. Some people don’t care about coffee, caffeine and brown slop is good enough. Some people do care. I feel the difference in native and it’s worth it for apps you spend lots of time in. Electron and Qt are not in the same league.
  - wayneftw 6y ago
    > Electron and Qt are not in the same league. No, they're certainly not. Qt takes a lot of effort to produce apps that look like garbage on every OS while Electron takes no effort to produce apps that look great everywhere. VLC Media Player - arguably the most popular Qt app - looks like dog shit. Qt will have you coding in an old shitty programming language or using duct-tape and glue to bind it to a more popular language while Electron will have you coding in the most popular programming language and getting things done in a fraction of the time. Qt is register-ware that is moving closer to being closed-source while Electron is 100% open source.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  As much as the community like to complain about it, I find that the popularity of Electron has been a real saver for Linux on the desktop. It finally has all the major applications available, often officially supported. Yes it's slow, but at least it's there.
jkmcf 6y ago
I'm excited about Tauri: https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri
- solarkraft 6y ago
  There are tons of supposedly lighter weight electron alternatives. Why are they not more popular?
  - ethanwillis 6y ago
    Corporate backed marketing and geographically centralized mindshare.
  - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    >Tauri apps currently leverages Cocoa/WebKit on macOS, gtk-webkit2 on Linux and MSHTML (IE10/11) or Webkit via Edge on Windows This is why, the devs who settle for Electron more often than not are not interested in doing cross browser support either.
pantulis 6y ago
" (Electron does put multiplatform desktop development within reach of 100x more developers than Qt/etc)" This! The old joke of Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping for Emacs is not relevant today any more. Same will happen with Electron, developer productivity will trump anything.
- anoncake 6y ago
  Hardware improves a lot more slowly than it used to be.
  - pantulis 6y ago
    This is a very good point!
- egypturnash 6y ago
  s/productivity/laziness/
justsomeuser 6y ago
I think it just comes down to economics. For the cost of a developer day-rate you can buy extremely powerful hardware. So which resource do you want to conserve - your developer time or your hardware resources? Especially the fact that the “hardware resources” isn’t even your cost it’s your customers cost.

by Jare 6y ago

qz2 6y ago

I installed windows NT in a virtual machine for kicks a few months back. Then installed office 97 on it. If you do that and open slack immediately afterwards it feels painful instantly. The difference in how it feels is quite scary.

johnisgood 6y ago
Partly we can thank this to the "throw more hardware at it" mentality and "lowering the barrier to entry" where noobs create the stuff a lot of us use. People can say all they want that it is good to lower the barrier entry, but that comes with a price. The price that others have to pay when we use their crapware. As long as it is not mandatory though, it is fine, but when it becomes mandatory, it becomes an issue.
- cannedslime 6y ago
  Its your choice to use others "crapware". The price it comes with is all the abuse "noobs" have to take for offering their solutions for free. You don't like HTML frontends, thats sweet, then make your own alternative with Qt or winforms. There is NO "mandatory" electron apps... But there is some great software made with electron that has become very popular. I am confident if something has been made with electron, there is native alternatives out there. Don't like slack? Then use IRC. Don't like my joystick to keyboard/mouse remapper with an electron frontend? Then don't, use one of the many alternatives (Too bad if they don't provide what you are looking for and no one of them seems to be able to modulate output in order to emulate analog controls. But at least it was written by a pro!)
  - johnisgood 6y ago
    I mentioned in my last sentence that as long as it is not mandatory, it is OK, but there are cases where it is mandatory, e.g. at the workplace. I do not use Slack. I use self-hosted Mattermost as a replacement of Slack, I use IRC, and I use Element (formerly known as Riot.im).
    - cannedslime 6y ago
      Well, you will never get around being forced to use something in your workplace. I would never use Cisco VPNs but I had to install their shitty client in every workplace I ever been on.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    > I am confident if something has been made with electron, there is native alternatives out there. Don't like slack? Then use IRC. That only works if you can control what others use (maybe not in the case of Slack, but that's the exception as messengers go).
- coldtea 6y ago
  >Partly we can thank this to the "throw more hardware at it" mentality and "lowering the barrier to entry" where noobs create the stuff a lot of us use. What people don't understand is that it's not a "mentality", it's an economic imperative. It makes sense, business wise, to "throw more hardware at it", and "lowering the barrier to entry" obviously also means that somebody can develop something with lower costs/faster time to market. It's not a question of spoiled devs. It's a question of savvy business people. People not understanding this don't understand how economics works.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

As someone who switches between Windows and macOS, I'd rather every app I use be Electron and available on both OS than native and only available on one. Native does basically nothing for me that matters when it comes to accomplishing things. Just OS lock-in. Loading a little faster or being a little snappier is a small consolation.

john_alan 6y ago
Wel native is important for me. Some people don’t care about coffee, caffeine and brown slop is good enough. Some people do care. I feel the difference in native and it’s worth it for apps you spend lots of time in. Electron and Qt are not in the same league.
- wayneftw 6y ago
  > Electron and Qt are not in the same league. No, they're certainly not. Qt takes a lot of effort to produce apps that look like garbage on every OS while Electron takes no effort to produce apps that look great everywhere. VLC Media Player - arguably the most popular Qt app - looks like dog shit. Qt will have you coding in an old shitty programming language or using duct-tape and glue to bind it to a more popular language while Electron will have you coding in the most popular programming language and getting things done in a fraction of the time. Qt is register-ware that is moving closer to being closed-source while Electron is 100% open source.
benhurmarcel 6y ago
As much as the community like to complain about it, I find that the popularity of Electron has been a real saver for Linux on the desktop. It finally has all the major applications available, often officially supported. Yes it's slow, but at least it's there.

jkmcf 6y ago

I'm excited about Tauri: https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri

solarkraft 6y ago
There are tons of supposedly lighter weight electron alternatives. Why are they not more popular?
- ethanwillis 6y ago
  Corporate backed marketing and geographically centralized mindshare.
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  >Tauri apps currently leverages Cocoa/WebKit on macOS, gtk-webkit2 on Linux and MSHTML (IE10/11) or Webkit via Edge on Windows This is why, the devs who settle for Electron more often than not are not interested in doing cross browser support either.

pantulis 6y ago

" (Electron does put multiplatform desktop development within reach of 100x more developers than Qt/etc)" This! The old joke of Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping for Emacs is not relevant today any more. Same will happen with Electron, developer productivity will trump anything.

anoncake 6y ago
Hardware improves a lot more slowly than it used to be.
- pantulis 6y ago
  This is a very good point!
egypturnash 6y ago
s/productivity/laziness/

justsomeuser 6y ago

I think it just comes down to economics. For the cost of a developer day-rate you can buy extremely powerful hardware. So which resource do you want to conserve - your developer time or your hardware resources? Especially the fact that the “hardware resources” isn’t even your cost it’s your customers cost.