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Electron is a pile of shit and _every_ Electron app I am forced to use should be a source of continuous shame for any dev who actually worked on it. This has no

by evgen 5y ago

Electron is a pile of shit and _every_ Electron app I am forced to use should be a source of continuous shame for any dev who actually worked on it. This has nothing to do with improving features or service and is completely about increasing revenue and improving the sort of numbers investors like to see -- driven entirely by the fact that AgileBits has recently closed a B round and needs to show more revenue to justify that $2B valuation. As a long-time 1password shill I have hit my limit and will slowly start migrating to BitWarden and iCloud Keychain.

selykg 5y ago
Bitwarden and iCloud Keychain user here. I'm looking forward to the 2FA improvements in this year's macOS. It'll mean I could, in theory, mostly ditch Bitwarden as that's the big use case there for me. You can create a shortcut in the iOS shortcuts app to open the Passwords area of Settings via an icon on your Home Screen. Just open the following URL in the shortcut: prefs:root=PASSWORDS Best tip I have for you around iCloud Keychain right there.
- theNJR 5y ago
  Wow, you’re the real MVP here. Thank you. For anyone who doesnt use shortcuts often, what you need to do in Shortcuts is: 1. Make a ‘URL’ action to prefs:root=PASSWORDS 2. Hit the ‘+’ and make a ‘Open URL’ action from safari. Save, add to Home Screen, and you’re done.
mynameisvlad 5y ago
VS Code would like a word with you.
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  Yeah, and there are dozens of us -- DOZENS! -- who continue to happily use SublimeText because VS Code feels so sluggish in comparison.
  - mynameisvlad 5y ago
    And that’s a completely valid choice to make! Some people use vim and emacs because they find Sublime too sluggish. But that doesn’t make VS Code “shit”. It’s pretty much the shining star of Electron done right.
    - dharmab 5y ago
      As a Vim user I will happily admit that Sublime is significantly faster in some key areas of daily use.
      - mynameisvlad 5y ago
        But even then I'd assume it was more due to the workflow than the original complaint, which was essentially "Electron = bad, you should be ashamed for using it".
        dharmab 5y ago
        No, I have plugins for roughly the same feature set/workflow in both editors. Open and edit a huge file in both editors and Sublime is more responsive.
    - sngz 5y ago
      > Electron done right that is a very low bar. VS code is still slow and eats up a ton of resources. not to mention I don't trust anything from microsoft. OP said electron = bad and you should be ashamed of using it because its helping propagate it's usage when its a cancer.
      - mynameisvlad 5y ago
        Yeah, sure, ok. Electron is a tool. It can be used well. It can be used poorly. Any tool shares the same issues. I can write a shit native app and I can write a shit Electron app. All Electron does is lower the barrier of entry to making an app and making it work cross-platform.
weaksauce 5y ago
how do you think the bitwarden client is made?
thatswrong0 5y ago
> As a long-time 1password shill I have hit my limit and will slowly start migrating to BitWarden Bitwarden's desktop app is built on Electron..
- vetinari 5y ago
  While that's true, the good thing is, that you don't really need it, the browser extension is enough.
  - cmer 5y ago
    You also don't need the Mac app with 1Password. Their browser extensions can be used without it, and they're awesome.
    - tekknik 5y ago
      not if you don’t have a subscription
  - darknavi 5y ago
    Which is also true for 1Password (and LastPass AFAIK).
jl_agilebits 5y ago
I'm a feature developer for 1Password, and I want to clarify a few things. I've posted this already in another thread, but there seems to be some misinformation being spread that our technical decisions are being driven by VC funding. Our decision to built the macOS app in Electron was absolutely not driven by VC money. For the past few years, we've been working on consolidating 1Password's business logic into a single Rust-powered core that could be shared across all our apps. This has many advantages: feature consistency across platforms, faster development cycles, and better security. When building the front-end for the desktop platforms that would take advantage of this new core, Electron suited us perfectly, since we could write our UI code once and make it consistent across Linux, Windows, and Mac. We actually did build a native Mac app initially alongside the cross-platform Electron app, but we eventually decided that having two separate versions of the macOS app (one in Electron, one in SwiftUI) would cause a lot of needless development churn and hassle for both customers and our support team. I can understand your frustration about Electron, but I hope you find my explanation reasonable. Please stop spreading misinformation.
- robbiep 5y ago
  That’s reasonable logic but for me with a company subscription and previously having been an individual purchaser with my backup in iCloud rather than on 1 pass servers, it doesn’t really tilt the balance - I also hate electron with a passion and will be looking to stay on 7 for as long as possible with a high likelihood of shifting to a different provider due to the forced shift to cloud storage after this.
- vmladenov 5y ago
  With respect, I disagree with your conclusion about a SwiftUI version causing hassle for customers. Every time I use an Electron app, I get the distinct feeling that its developers are prioritizing their experience over my own. We the users subsidize faster development cycles with wasted CPU and memory, laggy interfaces, and strange, non-native UX.
  - the_lucifer 5y ago
    > We the users subsidize faster development cycles with wasted CPU and memory, laggy interfaces, and strange, non-native UX. I can absolutely attest to that with a relatively underpowered computer (4 gb of RAM). I can barely use 2 electron apps after which my computer grinds to a crawl (I’m running VSCode and Slack mostly). I have stopped using the discord desktop app and exclusively use the website now.

by evgen 5y ago

selykg 5y ago

Bitwarden and iCloud Keychain user here. I'm looking forward to the 2FA improvements in this year's macOS. It'll mean I could, in theory, mostly ditch Bitwarden as that's the big use case there for me. You can create a shortcut in the iOS shortcuts app to open the Passwords area of Settings via an icon on your Home Screen. Just open the following URL in the shortcut: prefs:root=PASSWORDS Best tip I have for you around iCloud Keychain right there.

theNJR 5y ago
Wow, you’re the real MVP here. Thank you. For anyone who doesnt use shortcuts often, what you need to do in Shortcuts is: 1. Make a ‘URL’ action to prefs:root=PASSWORDS 2. Hit the ‘+’ and make a ‘Open URL’ action from safari. Save, add to Home Screen, and you’re done.

mynameisvlad 5y ago

VS Code would like a word with you.

TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
Yeah, and there are dozens of us -- DOZENS! -- who continue to happily use SublimeText because VS Code feels so sluggish in comparison.
- mynameisvlad 5y ago
  And that’s a completely valid choice to make! Some people use vim and emacs because they find Sublime too sluggish. But that doesn’t make VS Code “shit”. It’s pretty much the shining star of Electron done right.
  - dharmab 5y ago
    As a Vim user I will happily admit that Sublime is significantly faster in some key areas of daily use.
    - mynameisvlad 5y ago
      But even then I'd assume it was more due to the workflow than the original complaint, which was essentially "Electron = bad, you should be ashamed for using it".
      - dharmab 5y ago
        No, I have plugins for roughly the same feature set/workflow in both editors. Open and edit a huge file in both editors and Sublime is more responsive.
  - sngz 5y ago
    > Electron done right that is a very low bar. VS code is still slow and eats up a ton of resources. not to mention I don't trust anything from microsoft. OP said electron = bad and you should be ashamed of using it because its helping propagate it's usage when its a cancer.
    - mynameisvlad 5y ago
      Yeah, sure, ok. Electron is a tool. It can be used well. It can be used poorly. Any tool shares the same issues. I can write a shit native app and I can write a shit Electron app. All Electron does is lower the barrier of entry to making an app and making it work cross-platform.

weaksauce 5y ago

how do you think the bitwarden client is made?

thatswrong0 5y ago

> As a long-time 1password shill I have hit my limit and will slowly start migrating to BitWarden Bitwarden's desktop app is built on Electron..

vetinari 5y ago
While that's true, the good thing is, that you don't really need it, the browser extension is enough.
- cmer 5y ago
  You also don't need the Mac app with 1Password. Their browser extensions can be used without it, and they're awesome.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    not if you don’t have a subscription
- darknavi 5y ago
  Which is also true for 1Password (and LastPass AFAIK).

jl_agilebits 5y ago

I'm a feature developer for 1Password, and I want to clarify a few things. I've posted this already in another thread, but there seems to be some misinformation being spread that our technical decisions are being driven by VC funding. Our decision to built the macOS app in Electron was absolutely not driven by VC money. For the past few years, we've been working on consolidating 1Password's business logic into a single Rust-powered core that could be shared across all our apps. This has many advantages: feature consistency across platforms, faster development cycles, and better security. When building the front-end for the desktop platforms that would take advantage of this new core, Electron suited us perfectly, since we could write our UI code once and make it consistent across Linux, Windows, and Mac. We actually did build a native Mac app initially alongside the cross-platform Electron app, but we eventually decided that having two separate versions of the macOS app (one in Electron, one in SwiftUI) would cause a lot of needless development churn and hassle for both customers and our support team. I can understand your frustration about Electron, but I hope you find my explanation reasonable. Please stop spreading misinformation.

robbiep 5y ago
That’s reasonable logic but for me with a company subscription and previously having been an individual purchaser with my backup in iCloud rather than on 1 pass servers, it doesn’t really tilt the balance - I also hate electron with a passion and will be looking to stay on 7 for as long as possible with a high likelihood of shifting to a different provider due to the forced shift to cloud storage after this.
vmladenov 5y ago
With respect, I disagree with your conclusion about a SwiftUI version causing hassle for customers. Every time I use an Electron app, I get the distinct feeling that its developers are prioritizing their experience over my own. We the users subsidize faster development cycles with wasted CPU and memory, laggy interfaces, and strange, non-native UX.
- the_lucifer 5y ago
  > We the users subsidize faster development cycles with wasted CPU and memory, laggy interfaces, and strange, non-native UX. I can absolutely attest to that with a relatively underpowered computer (4 gb of RAM). I can barely use 2 electron apps after which my computer grinds to a crawl (I’m running VSCode and Slack mostly). I have stopped using the discord desktop app and exclusively use the website now.