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> While we'll keep building the native macOS application as a first-class citizen, we're introducing today Paw for the Web, Paw for Windows and Paw for Linux!
by folkrav 6y ago
> While we'll keep building the native macOS application as a first-class citizen, we're introducing today Paw for the Web, Paw for Windows and Paw for Linux!
Straight from their announcement.
- dewey 6y agoThat would be great but I have a hard time believing it'll stay like that. Maintaining two code bases instead of making the "native macOS application" a Electron wrapper around their other code base doesn't seem scalable in the long run.
- folkrav 6y agoThat's moving the goalposts. The concern was for the native UI to get abandoned, it isn't. It may, or may not. The existence of the cross-platform version is hardly an indicator. If anything, having only the macOS version limited their reach and future expansion.
- dewey 6y agoNot necessarily. The concern was "because it’s not web-based", which could mean that they don't like the web UI or the web based technology stack behind it. For me a native app has to both look and feel native. An app that looks like a native app (Like an Electron app can) isn't fully native for me because it still runs a web browser under the hood.
- rhencke 6y agoI think that's exactly what 'keep[ing] building the native macOS application as a first-class citizen' means.
- folkrav 6y agoI dislike Electron as much as the next guy, but that description of what's "native" is IMHO quite arbitrary. Anything using a cross-platform UI toolkit doesn't fit that description, e.g. Qt apps definitely don't look like they are native outside KDE, GTK outside GTK based DEs/WMs, Java apps don't look native anywhere, nor does Tk, etc. while an Electron app that used native-like UI elements could.
- realityking 6y agoI think on macOS the definition of native is most often “Cocoa” and not the absence of web technologies.
- Wowfunhappy 6y agoIt's a spectrum. My hierarchy for Mac apps goes something like: Cocoa > Java > QT >>> Marzipan > Electron. On old OS's, Carbon would be between Cocoa and Java. And individual apps can vary a bit. But Electron apps generally feel less foreign than QT apps, which at least makes some attempt to use native Mac elements.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago^ I'm past the edit window but noticed a bad typo I need to correct—Electron apps feel more foreign than QT apps, not less!
- folkrav 6y agoOf course. However, between the close to sweet f*ck-all support we used to get on Linux for some software vs. a decent enough Electron app, I'll still take Electron. But I admittedly do have some RAM to spare.
- Wowfunhappy 6y agoCould have at least used Java :(
- folkrav 6y agoEh. Outside Jetbrains' IDEs, I don't remember ever using a Java app that didn't feel like clunky as hell.
- Wowfunhappy 6y agoThey're often better on macOS (assuming the developer put in some amount of effort) because Apple helped design the Mac SWING.
- coldtea 6y agoSounds like every announcement of "nothing will change" of any recently acquired company, before the product is shut down and tranformed to something completely different...
- folkrav 6y agoAgain, this is extrapolation. Until they do it, they didn't.
- coldtea 6y agoA dangerous, even if seemlingly cautious, way to approach life and expectations as a user/customer, when there's so much prior experience... Aka "this time might be different. Let's wait and see...". I wouldn't put my eggs in that basket.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]