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As someone who believes Electron is genuinely the best existing option for cross-platform desktop apps (and possibly desktop apps in general), I'm excited to se

As someone who believes Electron is genuinely the best existing option for cross-platform desktop apps (and possibly desktop apps in general), I'm excited to see someone trying to make something better by incorporating that context and that progress instead of ignoring it. The goals and the ideas here sound well-thought-out, and not tone-deaf, and I really hope this goes somewhere.

diskzero 5y ago
One aspect of Electron app, is that typically you can use the most of the same code in the browser. Would you expect to see the same result from this project; ClojureScript code running in the browser and JVM-backed Clojure running on the desktop? Like you, I am excited to see this approach. There may be a lot of negative opionions about Electron, but you can't deny the inroads it has made.
- brundolf 5y ago
  It seemed like the author hinted at that (and I believe Flutter sets a precedent for it), but I have no firsthand knowledge of the project With that said: I got the sense the author is mainly interested in targeting high-complexity desktop apps, which tend to have less need to be available in both forms
tomjen3 5y ago
Now I am curious, why is Electron a better option than putting a simple webserver in your code and then open it in the users favourite browser? You get the same options in terms of what the JS can do, except you aren't limited to Javascript on the backend and you don't need to ship the Chrome runtime to a user that already has one.
- brundolf 5y ago
  A few things: 1) Packaging/general polish. With the server solution the user doesn't get a desktop icon, or a single .app/.exe, etc. Their window manager doesn't work with the app the normal way. Etc. 2) Certain other native integrations. An electron app can populate the Mac menu bar, it can use native right-click menus, it can do rich notifications that aren't constrained to the browser's notifications API, it can show a red dot in the system dock, etc. 3) Stability of pinning to a specific Chromium version. This can work for some things- mostly developer tools where users may not care as much about polish and may care more about reducing install size. But it's not really a replacement.
tonsky 5y ago
thank you!

diskzero 5y ago

One aspect of Electron app, is that typically you can use the most of the same code in the browser. Would you expect to see the same result from this project; ClojureScript code running in the browser and JVM-backed Clojure running on the desktop? Like you, I am excited to see this approach. There may be a lot of negative opionions about Electron, but you can't deny the inroads it has made.

brundolf 5y ago
It seemed like the author hinted at that (and I believe Flutter sets a precedent for it), but I have no firsthand knowledge of the project With that said: I got the sense the author is mainly interested in targeting high-complexity desktop apps, which tend to have less need to be available in both forms

tomjen3 5y ago

Now I am curious, why is Electron a better option than putting a simple webserver in your code and then open it in the users favourite browser? You get the same options in terms of what the JS can do, except you aren't limited to Javascript on the backend and you don't need to ship the Chrome runtime to a user that already has one.

brundolf 5y ago
A few things: 1) Packaging/general polish. With the server solution the user doesn't get a desktop icon, or a single .app/.exe, etc. Their window manager doesn't work with the app the normal way. Etc. 2) Certain other native integrations. An electron app can populate the Mac menu bar, it can use native right-click menus, it can do rich notifications that aren't constrained to the browser's notifications API, it can show a red dot in the system dock, etc. 3) Stability of pinning to a specific Chromium version. This can work for some things- mostly developer tools where users may not care as much about polish and may care more about reducing install size. But it's not really a replacement.

tonsky 5y ago

thank you!