8 ms·

I think scalability, portability and cleanliness is mostly talk. The reality is that browser based frameworks like Electron are popular because developers who o

I think scalability, portability and cleanliness is mostly talk. The reality is that browser based frameworks like Electron are popular because developers who only know js are cheaper and the first half of the lifecycle is cheaper and faster while the second half is often either dropped entirely or someone else's problem. Of course a JIT compiler will never be as performant as precompiled binaries, especially when its running in a full featured web browser that is packing functions that the developer neither needs nor is using.

postalrat 5y ago
The reason electron took off if because it was the first to offer an easy way to build cross platform apps. Something the systems guys have failed to deliver for many years.
- handrous 5y ago
  There are tons of easy ways to build cross-platform apps, and have been for a long time. Extreme, very free-form customization of GUI elements so it looks & behaves exactly the way your marketing, branding, & web-design folks want down to the pixel on every platform, is what was hard before Electron. If you just wanted to deliver a GUI applications cross-platform, full stop, that's not something you couldn't do before, fairly easily, especially if Electron's performance and integration with its host platform is considered acceptable for what you're doing.
  - postalrat 5y ago
    What alternatives? How many of them include the web as a platform?
    - handrous 5y ago
      Java and its various GUI toolkits (again, especially if Electron's performance isn't bad enough that it's off the table). QT. TK. Wx. Delphi and some others if you didn't mind paying. Obviously none of them include the Web as a platform (unless you count Java applets, which you shouldn't since they're basically dead, even if they'd seem high-performance and quite nice compared to what we've replaced them with).
      - tshaddox 5y ago
        Why is that obvious? The only thing that’s obvious to me is that if these cross-platform GUI frameworks don’t support the web then almost no one who needs to build a cross-platform GUI will have any use for them.
        handrous 5y ago
        Because I was responding to "The reason electron took off if because it was the first to offer an easy way to build cross platform apps". If you're defining "cross platform" as, strictly, "the Web", then I'm not really sure what kind of exchange you're trying to have or what you're trying to add, here. Obviously only the web satisfies the criterion of being the web. Which makes me wonder even more why you didn't find that obvious.
        tshaddox 5y ago
        I'm certainly not trying to define "cross-platform" to mean "the web." I'm just pointing out that the web is a huge platform and for many use cases is arguably the most platform for a cross-platform GUI framework to support.
        handrous 5y ago
        "Webtech's (Electron, specifically) the only reason cross-platform desktop GUI programs are now cheap & easy enough to be viable" "Well, no, we've had that for a long time, especially if you consider the performance compromises of Electron or in-browser 'apps' to exist within the acceptable range. Electron does make mimicking this year's UI trends as easy on the desktop as on the Web, and doing so on every platform at once, and that was hard before." "Right, but do those earlier solutions support the web as a platform?" "... huh?" See why I'm confused about where you're taking this? It's like someone claimed that airplanes were the only way to travel by machine, and I pointed out that, for one thing, trains existed before that, and now you're asking me if trains can fly. No—and, again, obviously so unless we've got some seriously different life experience, here—but that's... a complete non-sequitur to the conversation already in progress.
    - CyberDildonics 5y ago
      Now you are moving the goal posts to "web as a platform". Web as a platform is not what you originally said and "web as a platform" is done well with web pages. People talk about electron being 'the only way to create cross platform apps' and ignore fltk, juce, qt, gtk, wxWidgets, tk and a whole host of other solutions, not to mention making a local webserver, opengl guis etc. When someone only knows javascript they might want to work with electron, but no one who is going to use that software wishes it was made in electron. That's the bottom line, people don't want it, it is a selfish decision that creates terrible interactivity and grossly bloated software.
      - handrous 5y ago
        I'm 100% convinced the appeal of Electron is that it makes chasing the latest UI trends month-to-month as easy on the desktop as it is on the web. Designers and businesses (and lots of developers) consider this essential, these days, for whatever reason. The above (yes, including the business side) will all complain about how a real desktop program using built-in or otherwise sane-and-stable GUI elements that haven't changed for 5 years looks too "old".
        postalrat 5y ago
        How many popular desktop apps use anything resembling native GUI elements? Not browsers, not photo editors, not games, not many chat applications. Certainly there must be some big ones that do right?
        CyberDildonics 5y ago
        Now you are moving the goal posts again from 'no other way to do cross platform apps' to 'what uses native GUI elements'. The dozen cross platform libraries that have been around for multiple decades are all 100 times faster than the electron, that's the point.
        postalrat 5y ago
        I didn't move any goal posts. Here I'm responding to a different comment. This time regarding gui elements and user experience.
    - thereddaikon 5y ago
      Why does "the web" have to be a targeted platform? It isn't one in reality, Chromium, Safari and Firefox are different enough that you have to target them specifically. Seems to me the desire for having "web" as a platform isn't so you can also support a browser application. Its so you can make it a web app and call the job done.
- citrusybread 5y ago
  Qt, wxWidgets, hell even Java's UI toolkits were all cross-platform long before Electron crawled out of the swamp. Even GTK is cross platform!
- brigandish 5y ago
  > an easy way That's the key phrase, and it means easy way for front end web devs, those who have forced the entire toolchain to dance to Javascript's tune because everything would be easier if we had one language to rule them all.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    What’s the easy way to build cross-platform GUIs for people who aren’t frontend web devs?
    - iforgotpassword 5y ago
      Build n native apps, make them look the same and pretend it's cross platform. :-)
      - CyberDildonics 5y ago
        I've seen people say stuff like this before. Do you actually not realize there have been cross platform GUI libraries for the last thirty years?
    - brigandish 5y ago
      There are plenty of mature cross platform GUI frameworks to choose from, they're not going to go away. Pick one, and like any other framework, if you stick with it you will soon find it easier than using something else. Even Zig has Qt bindings[1] and that's still enough of a hot young thing to regularly reach HN's front page, so it's likely that other popular languages that are older have bindings, no need to devolve to using something JS devs crave. There's wxWidgets[2] or Shoes (I loved using Shoes, thanks _why!) and many more[3]. [1] https://wiki.qt.io/Language_Bindings https://wiki.qt.io/Language_Bindings [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_bindings_for_wxWidgets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_bindings_for_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_widget_toolkits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_widget_toolkits
spamizbad 5y ago
I'm not convinced React Native developers are cheaper than C/C++ developers. At my last job, the Python and C++ devs were on identical salary bands.

postalrat 5y ago

The reason electron took off if because it was the first to offer an easy way to build cross platform apps. Something the systems guys have failed to deliver for many years.

handrous 5y ago
There are tons of easy ways to build cross-platform apps, and have been for a long time. Extreme, very free-form customization of GUI elements so it looks & behaves exactly the way your marketing, branding, & web-design folks want down to the pixel on every platform, is what was hard before Electron. If you just wanted to deliver a GUI applications cross-platform, full stop, that's not something you couldn't do before, fairly easily, especially if Electron's performance and integration with its host platform is considered acceptable for what you're doing.
- postalrat 5y ago
  What alternatives? How many of them include the web as a platform?
  - handrous 5y ago
    Java and its various GUI toolkits (again, especially if Electron's performance isn't bad enough that it's off the table). QT. TK. Wx. Delphi and some others if you didn't mind paying. Obviously none of them include the Web as a platform (unless you count Java applets, which you shouldn't since they're basically dead, even if they'd seem high-performance and quite nice compared to what we've replaced them with).
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      Why is that obvious? The only thing that’s obvious to me is that if these cross-platform GUI frameworks don’t support the web then almost no one who needs to build a cross-platform GUI will have any use for them.
      - handrous 5y ago
        Because I was responding to "The reason electron took off if because it was the first to offer an easy way to build cross platform apps". If you're defining "cross platform" as, strictly, "the Web", then I'm not really sure what kind of exchange you're trying to have or what you're trying to add, here. Obviously only the web satisfies the criterion of being the web. Which makes me wonder even more why you didn't find that obvious.
        tshaddox 5y ago
        I'm certainly not trying to define "cross-platform" to mean "the web." I'm just pointing out that the web is a huge platform and for many use cases is arguably the most platform for a cross-platform GUI framework to support.
        handrous 5y ago
        "Webtech's (Electron, specifically) the only reason cross-platform desktop GUI programs are now cheap & easy enough to be viable" "Well, no, we've had that for a long time, especially if you consider the performance compromises of Electron or in-browser 'apps' to exist within the acceptable range. Electron does make mimicking this year's UI trends as easy on the desktop as on the Web, and doing so on every platform at once, and that was hard before." "Right, but do those earlier solutions support the web as a platform?" "... huh?" See why I'm confused about where you're taking this? It's like someone claimed that airplanes were the only way to travel by machine, and I pointed out that, for one thing, trains existed before that, and now you're asking me if trains can fly. No—and, again, obviously so unless we've got some seriously different life experience, here—but that's... a complete non-sequitur to the conversation already in progress.
  - CyberDildonics 5y ago
    Now you are moving the goal posts to "web as a platform". Web as a platform is not what you originally said and "web as a platform" is done well with web pages. People talk about electron being 'the only way to create cross platform apps' and ignore fltk, juce, qt, gtk, wxWidgets, tk and a whole host of other solutions, not to mention making a local webserver, opengl guis etc. When someone only knows javascript they might want to work with electron, but no one who is going to use that software wishes it was made in electron. That's the bottom line, people don't want it, it is a selfish decision that creates terrible interactivity and grossly bloated software.
    - handrous 5y ago
      I'm 100% convinced the appeal of Electron is that it makes chasing the latest UI trends month-to-month as easy on the desktop as it is on the web. Designers and businesses (and lots of developers) consider this essential, these days, for whatever reason. The above (yes, including the business side) will all complain about how a real desktop program using built-in or otherwise sane-and-stable GUI elements that haven't changed for 5 years looks too "old".
      - postalrat 5y ago
        How many popular desktop apps use anything resembling native GUI elements? Not browsers, not photo editors, not games, not many chat applications. Certainly there must be some big ones that do right?
        CyberDildonics 5y ago
        Now you are moving the goal posts again from 'no other way to do cross platform apps' to 'what uses native GUI elements'. The dozen cross platform libraries that have been around for multiple decades are all 100 times faster than the electron, that's the point.
        postalrat 5y ago
        I didn't move any goal posts. Here I'm responding to a different comment. This time regarding gui elements and user experience.
  - thereddaikon 5y ago
    Why does "the web" have to be a targeted platform? It isn't one in reality, Chromium, Safari and Firefox are different enough that you have to target them specifically. Seems to me the desire for having "web" as a platform isn't so you can also support a browser application. Its so you can make it a web app and call the job done.
citrusybread 5y ago
Qt, wxWidgets, hell even Java's UI toolkits were all cross-platform long before Electron crawled out of the swamp. Even GTK is cross platform!
brigandish 5y ago
> an easy way That's the key phrase, and it means easy way for front end web devs, those who have forced the entire toolchain to dance to Javascript's tune because everything would be easier if we had one language to rule them all.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  What’s the easy way to build cross-platform GUIs for people who aren’t frontend web devs?
  - iforgotpassword 5y ago
    Build n native apps, make them look the same and pretend it's cross platform. :-)
    - CyberDildonics 5y ago
      I've seen people say stuff like this before. Do you actually not realize there have been cross platform GUI libraries for the last thirty years?
  - brigandish 5y ago
    There are plenty of mature cross platform GUI frameworks to choose from, they're not going to go away. Pick one, and like any other framework, if you stick with it you will soon find it easier than using something else. Even Zig has Qt bindings[1] and that's still enough of a hot young thing to regularly reach HN's front page, so it's likely that other popular languages that are older have bindings, no need to devolve to using something JS devs crave. There's wxWidgets[2] or Shoes (I loved using Shoes, thanks _why!) and many more[3]. [1] https://wiki.qt.io/Language_Bindings https://wiki.qt.io/Language_Bindings [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_bindings_for_wxWidgets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_bindings_for_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_widget_toolkits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_widget_toolkits

spamizbad 5y ago

I'm not convinced React Native developers are cheaper than C/C++ developers. At my last job, the Python and C++ devs were on identical salary bands.