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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 entir

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.
    - horsawlarway 5y ago
      I think your entitlement is leaking. You might want to have it checked.
      - somewhatbetter 5y ago
        Are you mad because you are also a mediocre programer? You can change that through learning.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        somewhatbetter 5y ago
        Stop being passive-aggressive and explain what you wanted to say, maybe you will notice you are wrong.
        dang 5y ago
        We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. Please don't create accounts to do that with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        somewhatbetter 5y ago
        Thanks.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  And if they do, there's already ChromeOS. Why use an inferior slapped-together distro for that?
inetknght 5y ago
> electron > linux support is native Whoever told you that Electron means native Linux is lying to you. It's as native to Linux as a web app is native to Windows or Mac; that is: it's just run in a glorified browser.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  native is probably an exxageration. But it means (in theory) the same experience on all plattforms. And in my opinion, a working linux electron app beats a buggy wine ported version by far. Because this is usually the choice. The linux market is way too small and unwilling to spend much money, than to justify a common software developer to spend the effort of porting.
  - Arch-TK 5y ago
    >unwilling to spend much money Citation needed. I think for years humble indie bundle kept statistics and linux supporters were always chipping in well above average.
    - hutzlibu 5y ago
      I know, but would doubt, that they are represantive of the common linux user.
  - JohnFen 5y ago
    > Because this is usually the choice. Interesting. I don't seem to be lacking software to do everything I want to do in Linux without having to use Wine. Also, I've spent more money buying Linux software than any other platform.
  - inetknght 5y ago
    > But it means (in theory) the same experience on all plattforms. That's quite the opposite of native since each platform has a host of unique features and capabilities. Guaranteeing the same experience on all platforms is guaranteeing that you're not using the platforms natively.
  - 5y ago
FpUser 5y ago
I have zero troubles shipping Windows and Linux user end GUI made in Lazarus. Single tiny exe. Does not gobble up RAM either.
- amelius 5y ago
  C++ with Qt also seems like a good choice, although it is not free for most types of commercial use.
  - FpUser 5y ago
    After reading their license I would not touch it with the wooden pole. Too bad as it seem to be a good tool. I made couple of demo projects to get familiar but did not proceed any further as I did not want to end up paying one of the most exorbitant license fees for a general development tool.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Lazarus is pretty good, I've used it a few times myself to make quick one-off static executables with GUIs. I don't use it for anything serious though because, well, Pascal just isn't a language I want to spend a lot of time working in. I wish there was something like Lazarus, but somehow more language agnostic.
  - horsawlarway 5y ago
    Maybe try electron with WASM? :D (Full disclosure - I don't really recommend this, it's not ready yet, imo)
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      If you think electron is anything at all like Lazarus, you must never have used Lazarus.
      - horsawlarway 5y ago
JohnFen 5y ago
> Do I FUCKING LOVE BEYOND BELIEF that it means linux support is native and present at first release? Not me. From my point of view, if the Linux version is Electron-based, then there is no Linux version.
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here. If the linux version is Electron-based, ALL versions will be electron based. That's the whole point. If you'd rather not use electron based software, more power to ya - that's your choice. But lets admit that's a luxury that some of us don't have - I'm a hell of a lot happier spinning up slack as an electron app rather than having to run it in a vm, I promise you that much.
- Spivak 5y ago
  I won't knock you for that opinion but I can use VS Code, Spotify, Bitwarden, Discord, Teams, Notion, GH Desktop where not 10 years ago I would have been stuck with either the crippled web versions, running them in a Windows VM, or booting into my Windows partition. It's fine to hate the tech and wish that someone would come along and make something better but the tools that everyone big and small is using to build apps is cross-platform by default and that's a huge huge huge win for users.
throwawayboise 5y ago
... does it mean I won't run your software? You bet your ass it does.
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  I mean... great? If the determining factor for whether my product was useful to you is what rendering engine it uses, you were not and will not ever be the target user anyways. I don't make "social" apps, I'm not in the business of collecting users for the hell of it. Either I provide business value or I don't, and Electron has very little to do with the business value my customers get (although it certainly does accelerate new feature releases, and most of my customers like that).
staticassertion 5y ago
no please dont turn this into a "why i like/dislike electron" thread edit: ah, too late
TchoBeer 5y ago
Isn't this the problem Java was trying to solve? Why did that go out of fashion?
- criddell 5y ago
  It did go out of fashion and I'm not sure why that is. I do have some ideas and opinions... AFAIK, JetBrains builds all of their excellent IDEs with Java + Swing. Old school for sure, but it works great. If I were building something new today, I would definitely consider Java on both the client and server sides.
- recursive 5y ago
  Java applets were one of the first and most visible ways that this was attempted. The user experience of applets was atrocious. Starting up the applet runtime browser plugin at the time would cause the whole system to stutter and stall for several seconds. I'm not sure if it was the single core architecture of the time, but I recall that the entire system would lock up while this was happening. I think that this single fact caused a lot of damage to the reputation of java in the general public.
orbital-decay 5y ago
>Do I FUCKING LOVE BEYOND BELIEF that it means linux support is native and present at first release? You bet your ass I do. Ironically, this thread is exactly about a Logitech app that doesn't have this.

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.
  - horsawlarway 5y ago
    I think your entitlement is leaking. You might want to have it checked.
    - somewhatbetter 5y ago
      Are you mad because you are also a mediocre programer? You can change that through learning.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        somewhatbetter 5y ago
        Stop being passive-aggressive and explain what you wanted to say, maybe you will notice you are wrong.
      - dang 5y ago
        We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. Please don't create accounts to do that with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        somewhatbetter 5y ago
        Thanks.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
And if they do, there's already ChromeOS. Why use an inferior slapped-together distro for that?

inetknght 5y ago

> electron > linux support is native Whoever told you that Electron means native Linux is lying to you. It's as native to Linux as a web app is native to Windows or Mac; that is: it's just run in a glorified browser.

hutzlibu 5y ago
native is probably an exxageration. But it means (in theory) the same experience on all plattforms. And in my opinion, a working linux electron app beats a buggy wine ported version by far. Because this is usually the choice. The linux market is way too small and unwilling to spend much money, than to justify a common software developer to spend the effort of porting.
- Arch-TK 5y ago
  >unwilling to spend much money Citation needed. I think for years humble indie bundle kept statistics and linux supporters were always chipping in well above average.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    I know, but would doubt, that they are represantive of the common linux user.
- JohnFen 5y ago
  > Because this is usually the choice. Interesting. I don't seem to be lacking software to do everything I want to do in Linux without having to use Wine. Also, I've spent more money buying Linux software than any other platform.
- inetknght 5y ago
  > But it means (in theory) the same experience on all plattforms. That's quite the opposite of native since each platform has a host of unique features and capabilities. Guaranteeing the same experience on all platforms is guaranteeing that you're not using the platforms natively.
- 5y ago

FpUser 5y ago

I have zero troubles shipping Windows and Linux user end GUI made in Lazarus. Single tiny exe. Does not gobble up RAM either.

amelius 5y ago
C++ with Qt also seems like a good choice, although it is not free for most types of commercial use.
- FpUser 5y ago
  After reading their license I would not touch it with the wooden pole. Too bad as it seem to be a good tool. I made couple of demo projects to get familiar but did not proceed any further as I did not want to end up paying one of the most exorbitant license fees for a general development tool.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Lazarus is pretty good, I've used it a few times myself to make quick one-off static executables with GUIs. I don't use it for anything serious though because, well, Pascal just isn't a language I want to spend a lot of time working in. I wish there was something like Lazarus, but somehow more language agnostic.
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  Maybe try electron with WASM? :D (Full disclosure - I don't really recommend this, it's not ready yet, imo)
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    If you think electron is anything at all like Lazarus, you must never have used Lazarus.
    - horsawlarway 5y ago

JohnFen 5y ago

> Do I FUCKING LOVE BEYOND BELIEF that it means linux support is native and present at first release? Not me. From my point of view, if the Linux version is Electron-based, then there is no Linux version.

horsawlarway 5y ago
I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here. If the linux version is Electron-based, ALL versions will be electron based. That's the whole point. If you'd rather not use electron based software, more power to ya - that's your choice. But lets admit that's a luxury that some of us don't have - I'm a hell of a lot happier spinning up slack as an electron app rather than having to run it in a vm, I promise you that much.
Spivak 5y ago
I won't knock you for that opinion but I can use VS Code, Spotify, Bitwarden, Discord, Teams, Notion, GH Desktop where not 10 years ago I would have been stuck with either the crippled web versions, running them in a Windows VM, or booting into my Windows partition. It's fine to hate the tech and wish that someone would come along and make something better but the tools that everyone big and small is using to build apps is cross-platform by default and that's a huge huge huge win for users.

throwawayboise 5y ago

... does it mean I won't run your software? You bet your ass it does.

horsawlarway 5y ago
I mean... great? If the determining factor for whether my product was useful to you is what rendering engine it uses, you were not and will not ever be the target user anyways. I don't make "social" apps, I'm not in the business of collecting users for the hell of it. Either I provide business value or I don't, and Electron has very little to do with the business value my customers get (although it certainly does accelerate new feature releases, and most of my customers like that).

staticassertion 5y ago

no please dont turn this into a "why i like/dislike electron" thread edit: ah, too late

TchoBeer 5y ago

Isn't this the problem Java was trying to solve? Why did that go out of fashion?

criddell 5y ago
It did go out of fashion and I'm not sure why that is. I do have some ideas and opinions... AFAIK, JetBrains builds all of their excellent IDEs with Java + Swing. Old school for sure, but it works great. If I were building something new today, I would definitely consider Java on both the client and server sides.
recursive 5y ago
Java applets were one of the first and most visible ways that this was attempted. The user experience of applets was atrocious. Starting up the applet runtime browser plugin at the time would cause the whole system to stutter and stall for several seconds. I'm not sure if it was the single core architecture of the time, but I recall that the entire system would lock up while this was happening. I think that this single fact caused a lot of damage to the reputation of java in the general public.

orbital-decay 5y ago

>Do I FUCKING LOVE BEYOND BELIEF that it means linux support is native and present at first release? You bet your ass I do. Ironically, this thread is exactly about a Logitech app that doesn't have this.