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In the case of eBook readers, there's plenty of native software that fills that role in every platform, there's hardly a need for a cross-platform Electron ePUB

In the case of eBook readers, there's plenty of native software that fills that role in every platform, there's hardly a need for a cross-platform Electron ePUB reader. I suspect Electron frequently fills a need for the developers, instead of their users. It's easy to deploy, cross-platform and stable, I give you that, but the users pay for it with RAM, disk, CPU and energy. A single user might not mean much, but multiply that by the millions of Electron programs installed, that's the scale of lost resources that pay for the advantages of Electron.

Turing_Machine 6y ago
> here's hardly a need for a cross-platform Electron ePUB reader. If there's "no need" for them, why are people using them? How come you get to decide what other people "need"? > I suspect Electron frequently fills a need for the developers, instead of their users. It fills the need of the users to have actual apps they can install and run, rather than imaginary ones. > that's the scale of lost resources that pay for the advantages of Electron. People don't hand-write programs in assembly language any more, either, even though that means that you can no longer write a word processor that runs in 12K of RAM.
- ASalazarMX 6y ago
  I see we can't meet in the middle on this issue. I'm not saying all Electron programs are bad. VSCode, for example, is surprisingly good for many use cases, and being an IDE with many features, its resource usage is pretty justified. I'm also not buying that people need software that only exists as Electron programs. Check the categories in https://www.electronjs.org/apps https://www.electronjs.org/apps, there's even taskbar notifications and app launchers, do those merit running a dedicated browser? It's not that users need "non-imaginary" software and Electron fills that need, it's that most users don't know about native and web frameworks, and they will install software as long as their computer can run it, even if better alternatives exist right now.
rualca 6y ago
> In the case of eBook readers, there's plenty of native software that fills that role in every platform, there's hardly a need for a cross-platform Electron ePUB reader. I see this sort of assertion pop up often, but it never is accompanied by specific verifiable examples of what those options are. Can you point out a single example of said native software that fills that role in every platform? A single one.
- ASalazarMX 6y ago
  I think you misunderstood my response. it's not that the same software works as an eBook reader on every platform, but that nearly every platform has native and high-quality eBook readers. Try and run your Electron application in a Symbian phone or an iPad, for example.

Turing_Machine 6y ago

> here's hardly a need for a cross-platform Electron ePUB reader. If there's "no need" for them, why are people using them? How come you get to decide what other people "need"? > I suspect Electron frequently fills a need for the developers, instead of their users. It fills the need of the users to have actual apps they can install and run, rather than imaginary ones. > that's the scale of lost resources that pay for the advantages of Electron. People don't hand-write programs in assembly language any more, either, even though that means that you can no longer write a word processor that runs in 12K of RAM.

ASalazarMX 6y ago
I see we can't meet in the middle on this issue. I'm not saying all Electron programs are bad. VSCode, for example, is surprisingly good for many use cases, and being an IDE with many features, its resource usage is pretty justified. I'm also not buying that people need software that only exists as Electron programs. Check the categories in https://www.electronjs.org/apps https://www.electronjs.org/apps, there's even taskbar notifications and app launchers, do those merit running a dedicated browser? It's not that users need "non-imaginary" software and Electron fills that need, it's that most users don't know about native and web frameworks, and they will install software as long as their computer can run it, even if better alternatives exist right now.

rualca 6y ago

> In the case of eBook readers, there's plenty of native software that fills that role in every platform, there's hardly a need for a cross-platform Electron ePUB reader. I see this sort of assertion pop up often, but it never is accompanied by specific verifiable examples of what those options are. Can you point out a single example of said native software that fills that role in every platform? A single one.

ASalazarMX 6y ago
I think you misunderstood my response. it's not that the same software works as an eBook reader on every platform, but that nearly every platform has native and high-quality eBook readers. Try and run your Electron application in a Symbian phone or an iPad, for example.