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> Isn't that the type of software that keeps being defended here? ^^ No? I've basically never seen that and I see endless posts like yours.

caslon 5y ago
> Let’s get these out of the way: > 1. Yes, we’re building on Electron. Yes, we are aware of the performance tradeoffs, but have decided this is the best choice for us. We’re shipping Windows, Mac and Linux clients along with browsers with a four-person team — it’s the only good way right now to do that without features taking six months. We’ve modified the screen sharing pipeline in Chromium to reduce latency as much as possible, because with interactive screen sharing, milliseconds matter. Literally a massively popular post from this week, and all of their comments within are "Well yes, but theoretically VS Code got it to slightly over a hundred megabytes when idle so naturally Electron's perfect." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28223515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28223515
- nosianu 5y ago
  So you found someone who had a perfectly reasonable explanation for his choice of tools. We started with drivers and now you come with a desktop app example? Now find not just one (anecdote) but a trend in HN comments that this tool is recommended to be used when it is clearly the wrong tool for the job?
  - clownpenis_fart 5y ago
    a reasonable explanation would have been "it was the best choice for our end users", not "it was the best choice for us"
    - Closi 5y ago
      A reasonable explanation can, of course, be either of those things.
    - unethical_ban 5y ago
      Can't ship code that doesn't exist.
      - JohnFen 5y ago
        From my point of view, if the code being shipped performs badly, then it may as well not exist.
      - nvr219 5y ago
        Whoa that’s deep.
      - clownpenis_fart 5y ago
        ah yes, as we all know, it is literally impossible to write a desktop app without using electron
  - nottorp 5y ago
    > So you found someone who had a perfectly reasonable explanation for his choice of tools. Really depends on your definition of "reasonable". I could invoke Goodwin's law :)
- gpm 5y ago
  A driver and a screen sharing/video calling application have vastly different constraints, and what makes sense for one doesn't make sense for the other...
- detaro 5y ago
  I can just as well point at that thread and go "Isn't that the type of software HN keeps criticizing for being Electron?". Somehow people see discussions about A vs B and go "HN is totally always for A", despite the only reason you even see A so much is that it's hotly discussed every single time, with plenty people arguing B. And of course that shitty generalization is now top of the thread, instead of something discussing any substance specific to the submission.
  - da_chicken 5y ago
    The perception is that the pro-Electron group is made up of all the people writing the software being discussed and therefore getting most of the benefits of their choice, while the anti-Electron group is made up of all the people criticizing it for having to put up with all the drawbacks for the end-user (and setting aside the fact that the software may not exist at all if not for those pro-Electron benefits). However, since lots of software is still being written in Electron and... essentially none of the criticisms and drawbacks of doing so have been addressed, the anti-Electron group feels like they're being ignored. Because they are. So when they make posts about feeling ignored or complaining about having to repeat the same criticisms over and over without any improvement, that's because that's what's happening. The anti-Electron people are not saying that nobody agrees with them. They're complaining that their arguments are clearly falling on deaf ears.
    - somewhatbetter 5y ago
      >essentially none of the criticisms and drawbacks of doing so have been addressed, the anti-Electron group feels like they're being ignored I was told there is a "Hit a programer, they will know why did they got it" group and they basically waiting for the employes at the HQs, following them to the parking lots / train stations and beating the living sht out of them, just because their profession is programer. Maybe if this gets mainstream we will see change in the future.
    - detaro 5y ago
      You also see non-devs saying Electron is fine, and if the complaints were considered is not something you can really tell. Few people deciding against Electron are going to loudly broadcast that "we were thinking about Electron", and if you consider it and decide it's worth it for you despite downsides, well, you are the "bad guy"(TM) anyways.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- staticassertion 5y ago
  They literally put "why we use electron" as their first point clearly in defense of the expected onslaught of HNers who were going to attack them for it. > and all of their comments within A majority of the following posts (with regards to Electron) are negative... > ust promise yourself you'll eventually quit Electron. Electron is nothing more than a deal you make with the devil, > Don’t just tinker... make it a grand North Star goal to lose Electron, and make performance your moat. > It being Electron especially explains why it's so much more resource intensive than the other solutions. > I hope you'll reconsider as your team grows. > For me personally, memory usage has been a big concern with the growing number of Electron apps > Indeed - a key competitor, Tuple, does not use Electron, and as a result I won’t even be taking a second look at Pop. It's interesting that people on HN seem to be in such an obvious echo chamber but also see themselves as outsiders.
  - greesil 5y ago
    These two things are not mutually exclusive.
  - compiler-guy 5y ago
    There are thousands and thousands of people on HackerNews and only a tiny fraction of people comment on any given post. Further, the group that does comment on a particular post isn’t a random sample. Under such conditions, expecting a consistent, well thought out, position from post to post is unrealistic. And not really even all that surprising.
    - staticassertion 5y ago
      I don't get your point. To reiterate, I'm challenging the idea that on HN you're likely to find stronger support for electron vs against.
      - infogulch 5y ago
        GP is challenging the idea that "HN" is a single cohort with a consistent monolithic viewpoint on anything.
- burnished 5y ago
  I have to agree with a sibling commenter, you've weakened your case by jumping from a driver to a desktop application. If we follow what I think your implicit reasoning here is, then we need to just throw Electron in the dumpster because there can be no good time to use it/no sufficient defense.
bayindirh 5y ago
> No? I've basically never seen that and I see endless posts like yours. HN is definitely swarming both proponents and opponents for Electron. While I can understand the appeal of Electron, I'm no way in favor of it.
- criddell 5y ago
  I think it's because the audience here has both creators and consumers.
  - horsawlarway 5y ago
    I'm both - I fucking love electron. Do I like the 300mb download? No Do I like the development language? No Do I like the apps built with it? Depends entirely on the app. Do I FUCKING LOVE BEYOND BELIEF that it means linux support is native and present at first release? You bet your ass I do.
    - criddell 5y ago
      Ultimately, I don't think that's great for Linux on the desktop. Nobody wants to use a platform where everything is giant battery, memory, and CPU hog.
      - horsawlarway 5y ago
        No one cares one whit about the battery/memory/CPU requirements of software they can't run in the first place. And at least in my experience, spinning up a VM to run windows only software is a bigger battery/memory/cpu hit than running electron. --- I would love it if Electron was better on those fronts (not to mention a few others) but it's good enough for most of my current use cases.
        somewhatbetter 5y ago
        Yes, it is good enough, this is exactly why we still live in the 60's (see linux), this is why we still use windows, this is why there is no seamless GUI on nixes, this is why we still use terminals and users, this is why intelligent, and great operating systems got messacred, this is why there are only mediocre people in the IT, and this is why we can't have nice things. But thanks for continuing the loop.
moonchrome 5y ago
The people I see complaining about Electron sound like they never did commercial frontend, and usually bring up stuff like Visual Basic making me think they haven't done frontend in 20 years or done anything non-trivial with GUI (if you actually used VB to build serious apps you'd know where the codebehind and using threads to avoid blocking the UI leads you). Just a very loud minority. I don't particularly like Electron but compared to the alternatives it's the best choice for a lot of apps (as demonstrated by the success of many apps using it, despite "performance is the most important feature" crowd).
- somewhatbetter 5y ago
  So because even senior programers can't do parallel-programming and handle threads then just simply use a webbrowser everywhere? Why don't you and the other programers sitting back into the school-bench and learn it? You know, it would make you more valuable at your company. But yeah, i understand, programers actually hate and not capable to learn something new, this is why linux exists.
rplnt 5y ago
I see both, all the time (where relevant). I understand the hate, so I tend to forget it. Justifying the horrible user experience for cost or "without electron the app wouldn't exits" is something I don't agree with and as such it sticks out more. You might be in the other camp and just have different perception.

caslon 5y ago

> Let’s get these out of the way: > 1. Yes, we’re building on Electron. Yes, we are aware of the performance tradeoffs, but have decided this is the best choice for us. We’re shipping Windows, Mac and Linux clients along with browsers with a four-person team — it’s the only good way right now to do that without features taking six months. We’ve modified the screen sharing pipeline in Chromium to reduce latency as much as possible, because with interactive screen sharing, milliseconds matter. Literally a massively popular post from this week, and all of their comments within are "Well yes, but theoretically VS Code got it to slightly over a hundred megabytes when idle so naturally Electron's perfect." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28223515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28223515

nosianu 5y ago
So you found someone who had a perfectly reasonable explanation for his choice of tools. We started with drivers and now you come with a desktop app example? Now find not just one (anecdote) but a trend in HN comments that this tool is recommended to be used when it is clearly the wrong tool for the job?
- clownpenis_fart 5y ago
  a reasonable explanation would have been "it was the best choice for our end users", not "it was the best choice for us"
  - Closi 5y ago
    A reasonable explanation can, of course, be either of those things.
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    Can't ship code that doesn't exist.
    - JohnFen 5y ago
      From my point of view, if the code being shipped performs badly, then it may as well not exist.
    - nvr219 5y ago
      Whoa that’s deep.
    - clownpenis_fart 5y ago
      ah yes, as we all know, it is literally impossible to write a desktop app without using electron
- nottorp 5y ago
  > So you found someone who had a perfectly reasonable explanation for his choice of tools. Really depends on your definition of "reasonable". I could invoke Goodwin's law :)
gpm 5y ago
A driver and a screen sharing/video calling application have vastly different constraints, and what makes sense for one doesn't make sense for the other...
detaro 5y ago
I can just as well point at that thread and go "Isn't that the type of software HN keeps criticizing for being Electron?". Somehow people see discussions about A vs B and go "HN is totally always for A", despite the only reason you even see A so much is that it's hotly discussed every single time, with plenty people arguing B. And of course that shitty generalization is now top of the thread, instead of something discussing any substance specific to the submission.
- da_chicken 5y ago
  The perception is that the pro-Electron group is made up of all the people writing the software being discussed and therefore getting most of the benefits of their choice, while the anti-Electron group is made up of all the people criticizing it for having to put up with all the drawbacks for the end-user (and setting aside the fact that the software may not exist at all if not for those pro-Electron benefits). However, since lots of software is still being written in Electron and... essentially none of the criticisms and drawbacks of doing so have been addressed, the anti-Electron group feels like they're being ignored. Because they are. So when they make posts about feeling ignored or complaining about having to repeat the same criticisms over and over without any improvement, that's because that's what's happening. The anti-Electron people are not saying that nobody agrees with them. They're complaining that their arguments are clearly falling on deaf ears.
  - somewhatbetter 5y ago
    >essentially none of the criticisms and drawbacks of doing so have been addressed, the anti-Electron group feels like they're being ignored I was told there is a "Hit a programer, they will know why did they got it" group and they basically waiting for the employes at the HQs, following them to the parking lots / train stations and beating the living sht out of them, just because their profession is programer. Maybe if this gets mainstream we will see change in the future.
  - detaro 5y ago
    You also see non-devs saying Electron is fine, and if the complaints were considered is not something you can really tell. Few people deciding against Electron are going to loudly broadcast that "we were thinking about Electron", and if you consider it and decide it's worth it for you despite downsides, well, you are the "bad guy"(TM) anyways.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
staticassertion 5y ago
They literally put "why we use electron" as their first point clearly in defense of the expected onslaught of HNers who were going to attack them for it. > and all of their comments within A majority of the following posts (with regards to Electron) are negative... > ust promise yourself you'll eventually quit Electron. Electron is nothing more than a deal you make with the devil, > Don’t just tinker... make it a grand North Star goal to lose Electron, and make performance your moat. > It being Electron especially explains why it's so much more resource intensive than the other solutions. > I hope you'll reconsider as your team grows. > For me personally, memory usage has been a big concern with the growing number of Electron apps > Indeed - a key competitor, Tuple, does not use Electron, and as a result I won’t even be taking a second look at Pop. It's interesting that people on HN seem to be in such an obvious echo chamber but also see themselves as outsiders.
- greesil 5y ago
  These two things are not mutually exclusive.
- compiler-guy 5y ago
  There are thousands and thousands of people on HackerNews and only a tiny fraction of people comment on any given post. Further, the group that does comment on a particular post isn’t a random sample. Under such conditions, expecting a consistent, well thought out, position from post to post is unrealistic. And not really even all that surprising.
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    I don't get your point. To reiterate, I'm challenging the idea that on HN you're likely to find stronger support for electron vs against.
    - infogulch 5y ago
      GP is challenging the idea that "HN" is a single cohort with a consistent monolithic viewpoint on anything.
burnished 5y ago
I have to agree with a sibling commenter, you've weakened your case by jumping from a driver to a desktop application. If we follow what I think your implicit reasoning here is, then we need to just throw Electron in the dumpster because there can be no good time to use it/no sufficient defense.

bayindirh 5y ago

> No? I've basically never seen that and I see endless posts like yours. HN is definitely swarming both proponents and opponents for Electron. While I can understand the appeal of Electron, I'm no way in favor of it.

criddell 5y ago
I think it's because the audience here has both creators and consumers.
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  I'm both - I fucking love electron. Do I like the 300mb download? No Do I like the development language? No Do I like the apps built with it? Depends entirely on the app. Do I FUCKING LOVE BEYOND BELIEF that it means linux support is native and present at first release? You bet your ass I do.
  - criddell 5y ago
    Ultimately, I don't think that's great for Linux on the desktop. Nobody wants to use a platform where everything is giant battery, memory, and CPU hog.
    - horsawlarway 5y ago
      No one cares one whit about the battery/memory/CPU requirements of software they can't run in the first place. And at least in my experience, spinning up a VM to run windows only software is a bigger battery/memory/cpu hit than running electron. --- I would love it if Electron was better on those fronts (not to mention a few others) but it's good enough for most of my current use cases.
      - somewhatbetter 5y ago
        Yes, it is good enough, this is exactly why we still live in the 60's (see linux), this is why we still use windows, this is why there is no seamless GUI on nixes, this is why we still use terminals and users, this is why intelligent, and great operating systems got messacred, this is why there are only mediocre people in the IT, and this is why we can't have nice things. But thanks for continuing the loop.

moonchrome 5y ago

The people I see complaining about Electron sound like they never did commercial frontend, and usually bring up stuff like Visual Basic making me think they haven't done frontend in 20 years or done anything non-trivial with GUI (if you actually used VB to build serious apps you'd know where the codebehind and using threads to avoid blocking the UI leads you). Just a very loud minority. I don't particularly like Electron but compared to the alternatives it's the best choice for a lot of apps (as demonstrated by the success of many apps using it, despite "performance is the most important feature" crowd).

somewhatbetter 5y ago
So because even senior programers can't do parallel-programming and handle threads then just simply use a webbrowser everywhere? Why don't you and the other programers sitting back into the school-bench and learn it? You know, it would make you more valuable at your company. But yeah, i understand, programers actually hate and not capable to learn something new, this is why linux exists.

rplnt 5y ago

I see both, all the time (where relevant). I understand the hate, so I tend to forget it. Justifying the horrible user experience for cost or "without electron the app wouldn't exits" is something I don't agree with and as such it sticks out more. You might be in the other camp and just have different perception.