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There are many reasons why developers use Electron for GUI development. The size of the final package is not very important, and creating many times the same na

There are many reasons why developers use Electron for GUI development. The size of the final package is not very important, and creating many times the same native application is not that appealing. Having a cross platform, responsive, and a modern high quality framework is much more appealing.

andrewflnr 5y ago
> The size of the final package is not very important You can only install so many packages with this philosophy before size starts to be important after. More to the point, you can only run a few of them at a time, on machines with gigabytes of RAM. This is a profound embarrassment to our industry. If by "responsive" you're referring to input latency, Electron apps are at best on par with native, usually worse IME. If by "responsive" you mean accommodating different displays... it's a desktop app. Your statement about a "high quality framework" is basically orthogonal to reality, but I'd like to see you justify rating React "higher quality" than Qt5.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I can start building in React today, and style literally everything without really thinking about it. I can start with Qt5 today, and give up screaming in rage tomorrow because I can’t get my select dropdown to display what I want.
  - hulitu 5y ago
    > I can start building in React today, and style literally everything without really thinking about it. And be cursed into oblivion by the first user. > I can start with Qt5 today, and give up screaming in rage tomorrow because I can’t get my select dropdown to display what I want. File a bug report. Oh, i forgot, developers want to develop, not to fix bugs.
- speedgoose 5y ago
  I understand the performance criticism. But people don't have that many apps, storage is cheap and we have plenty of ram. Today a high end smartphone has 128gb of storage and 8gb of ram. Some have 512gb of storage and 12gb of ram. An actual high end desktop computer has at least 64gb of ram and enough storage to have quite a lot of Electron runtimes installed side by side. My M1 MacBook pro with only 8gb of ram, I asked 16gb but someone did an ordering mistake, has no issues to run multiple electrons apps at the same time and storage is not something I think about. By responsive I mean accomoding different display sizes, to have a layout that makes sense on a small laptop with a touchscreen or a 4k 32" external display. For most usages, I will rate react much higher than Qt5, like almost everyone one in the the industry. The only Qt interface that I think is nice and up to modern standards, and that I remember is the Tesla user interface. It may be a few others because sometimes Qt makes sense, but not for desktop in my humble opinion.
  - ThrowawayR2 5y ago
    > "But people don't have that many apps, storage is cheap and we have plenty of ram." Appliance maker: "Electricity is cheap and there's plenty of it, who cares if all the devices we sell costs the consumer on their electricity bill and causes power plants to pollute the atmosphere more." Car manufacturer: "Fossil fuel is cheap and there's plenty of it, who cares if all the cars we sell cost the customer extra at the pump and adds to air pollution." There was a reckoning for both of those fields and there will eventually be a reckoning for software development as well.
    - speedgoose 5y ago
      I am a bit too lazy to do the maths, but I would guess that a single Electron development team consumes a lot less energy than many native development teams.

andrewflnr 5y ago

> The size of the final package is not very important You can only install so many packages with this philosophy before size starts to be important after. More to the point, you can only run a few of them at a time, on machines with gigabytes of RAM. This is a profound embarrassment to our industry. If by "responsive" you're referring to input latency, Electron apps are at best on par with native, usually worse IME. If by "responsive" you mean accommodating different displays... it's a desktop app. Your statement about a "high quality framework" is basically orthogonal to reality, but I'd like to see you justify rating React "higher quality" than Qt5.

Aeolun 5y ago
I can start building in React today, and style literally everything without really thinking about it. I can start with Qt5 today, and give up screaming in rage tomorrow because I can’t get my select dropdown to display what I want.
- hulitu 5y ago
  > I can start building in React today, and style literally everything without really thinking about it. And be cursed into oblivion by the first user. > I can start with Qt5 today, and give up screaming in rage tomorrow because I can’t get my select dropdown to display what I want. File a bug report. Oh, i forgot, developers want to develop, not to fix bugs.
speedgoose 5y ago
I understand the performance criticism. But people don't have that many apps, storage is cheap and we have plenty of ram. Today a high end smartphone has 128gb of storage and 8gb of ram. Some have 512gb of storage and 12gb of ram. An actual high end desktop computer has at least 64gb of ram and enough storage to have quite a lot of Electron runtimes installed side by side. My M1 MacBook pro with only 8gb of ram, I asked 16gb but someone did an ordering mistake, has no issues to run multiple electrons apps at the same time and storage is not something I think about. By responsive I mean accomoding different display sizes, to have a layout that makes sense on a small laptop with a touchscreen or a 4k 32" external display. For most usages, I will rate react much higher than Qt5, like almost everyone one in the the industry. The only Qt interface that I think is nice and up to modern standards, and that I remember is the Tesla user interface. It may be a few others because sometimes Qt makes sense, but not for desktop in my humble opinion.
- ThrowawayR2 5y ago
  > "But people don't have that many apps, storage is cheap and we have plenty of ram." Appliance maker: "Electricity is cheap and there's plenty of it, who cares if all the devices we sell costs the consumer on their electricity bill and causes power plants to pollute the atmosphere more." Car manufacturer: "Fossil fuel is cheap and there's plenty of it, who cares if all the cars we sell cost the customer extra at the pump and adds to air pollution." There was a reckoning for both of those fields and there will eventually be a reckoning for software development as well.
  - speedgoose 5y ago
    I am a bit too lazy to do the maths, but I would guess that a single Electron development team consumes a lot less energy than many native development teams.