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"They constantly crash..." Putting aside the downsides and reasons not to use Electron, this statement is just false. They are not "constantly crashing." I cur

"They constantly crash..." Putting aside the downsides and reasons not to use Electron, this statement is just false. They are not "constantly crashing." I currently use at least Figma, Insomnia, Slack, Spotify, and VS Code and these apps rarely crash, if ever.

wccrawford 5y ago
It's possible that they crash constantly on that person's computer, especially if they have a bad power supply or other hardware. The problem might just be their own.
- alias_neo 5y ago
  Dodgy stick of RAM maybe? I'm not a fan of electron, heck, is go as far as to say I don't like it, but those statements are just unfair. I run a bunch of electron apps on Linux every single day of the week for years now and I honestly can't say any of them have ever crashed. Yes they may take up a bunch of RAM, but how many software engineers have less than about 16GB, and what's that RAM there for, if not too run my tools? I can't say I've ever gotten over a few gigabytes of usage in a normal work day (not running any VMs for example). I don't use Chrome nor am I a tab-hoarder. Whether I like electron itself or not, the told built in it seems to get the job I need done just fine. Who cares if it takes 3-4 second to open, once per day?
  - strken 5y ago
    I used to do programming assignments on an Eee PC with 2GB of RAM, running Xubuntu and using Emacs as my editor. While modern netbooks generally have 4GB, and cheap laptops 8GB, it's not guaranteed that a student will be using a modern computer. Dev environments that waste RAM keep people from learning how to program, and disproportionately affect anyone using cheap hand-me-down hardware.
Trasmatta 5y ago
The memory arguments are valid, but I don't think I've ever once had an Electron application crash on me. Contrasted with older native applications that would crash on a weekly basis.
- destitude 5y ago
  Every well written app has multiple processes that can offload work to them and simply restart that single process if it crashes. Even Slack is running a number of processes so even if one does crash it simply restarts without affecting the main UI process.
quanticle 5y ago
I agree that these apps rarely crash, in the strict sense of the word. I don't think I've ever seen Slack get into a state where it's misbehaved to the point where the broader operating system has seen fit to kill the process. However, I have seen Slack get into weird states (like not updating read/unread status of messages, waiting forever for content to load, not showing notifications, etc) where the only way to fix the application was to quit it and restart. So no, Slack (and other Electron apps) don't crash. But maybe they should. A hard crash (and automatic restart) is often better than the slow creeping insanity that seems to afflict Electron apps when their internal state gets out of sync with itself.
- destitude 5y ago
  They do a good job of hiding when they crash by just reloading the entire web view. That happens quite often for me.
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    That's a valid strategy though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash-only_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash-only_software
- tehbeard 5y ago
  I mean, are any of those "not crashes" exclusively related to the domain of software written in a single language? Or is it a case of complex systems and not having AAA+ developers working on it? > (like not updating read/unread status of messages, waiting forever for content to load, not showing notifications, etc) I have had all 3 of those with Thunderbird.
drdec 5y ago
VSCode never crashes for me. Slack crashes rarely for me. More often, it just becomes unusably slow. Spotify crashes multiple times a day on me. The music keeps playing however, so it's only an issue when I want to make a change. Is it possible to use the "windows" version of the Spotify electron client on Linux? That might make a difference since the Linux client is unsupported.
- thiht 5y ago
  Nitpick: Spotify doesn’t use Electron but CEF.
chaos_a 5y ago
I've experienced multiple copies of Spotify on different machines getting forever stuck just showing a blank screen when opened. Although that's probably more Spotifys fault rather than the tools used to build it.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  Spotify does not like it when the internet connection is spotty or not existing during startup, even when you put it in offline mode before, or when your corporate VPN null-routes the Spotify IP range.

wccrawford 5y ago

It's possible that they crash constantly on that person's computer, especially if they have a bad power supply or other hardware. The problem might just be their own.

alias_neo 5y ago
Dodgy stick of RAM maybe? I'm not a fan of electron, heck, is go as far as to say I don't like it, but those statements are just unfair. I run a bunch of electron apps on Linux every single day of the week for years now and I honestly can't say any of them have ever crashed. Yes they may take up a bunch of RAM, but how many software engineers have less than about 16GB, and what's that RAM there for, if not too run my tools? I can't say I've ever gotten over a few gigabytes of usage in a normal work day (not running any VMs for example). I don't use Chrome nor am I a tab-hoarder. Whether I like electron itself or not, the told built in it seems to get the job I need done just fine. Who cares if it takes 3-4 second to open, once per day?
- strken 5y ago
  I used to do programming assignments on an Eee PC with 2GB of RAM, running Xubuntu and using Emacs as my editor. While modern netbooks generally have 4GB, and cheap laptops 8GB, it's not guaranteed that a student will be using a modern computer. Dev environments that waste RAM keep people from learning how to program, and disproportionately affect anyone using cheap hand-me-down hardware.

Trasmatta 5y ago

The memory arguments are valid, but I don't think I've ever once had an Electron application crash on me. Contrasted with older native applications that would crash on a weekly basis.

destitude 5y ago
Every well written app has multiple processes that can offload work to them and simply restart that single process if it crashes. Even Slack is running a number of processes so even if one does crash it simply restarts without affecting the main UI process.

quanticle 5y ago

I agree that these apps rarely crash, in the strict sense of the word. I don't think I've ever seen Slack get into a state where it's misbehaved to the point where the broader operating system has seen fit to kill the process. However, I have seen Slack get into weird states (like not updating read/unread status of messages, waiting forever for content to load, not showing notifications, etc) where the only way to fix the application was to quit it and restart. So no, Slack (and other Electron apps) don't crash. But maybe they should. A hard crash (and automatic restart) is often better than the slow creeping insanity that seems to afflict Electron apps when their internal state gets out of sync with itself.

destitude 5y ago
They do a good job of hiding when they crash by just reloading the entire web view. That happens quite often for me.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  That's a valid strategy though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash-only_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash-only_software
tehbeard 5y ago
I mean, are any of those "not crashes" exclusively related to the domain of software written in a single language? Or is it a case of complex systems and not having AAA+ developers working on it? > (like not updating read/unread status of messages, waiting forever for content to load, not showing notifications, etc) I have had all 3 of those with Thunderbird.

drdec 5y ago

VSCode never crashes for me. Slack crashes rarely for me. More often, it just becomes unusably slow. Spotify crashes multiple times a day on me. The music keeps playing however, so it's only an issue when I want to make a change. Is it possible to use the "windows" version of the Spotify electron client on Linux? That might make a difference since the Linux client is unsupported.

thiht 5y ago
Nitpick: Spotify doesn’t use Electron but CEF.

chaos_a 5y ago

I've experienced multiple copies of Spotify on different machines getting forever stuck just showing a blank screen when opened. Although that's probably more Spotifys fault rather than the tools used to build it.

mschuster91 5y ago
Spotify does not like it when the internet connection is spotty or not existing during startup, even when you put it in offline mode before, or when your corporate VPN null-routes the Spotify IP range.