4 ms·

Memory is not a precious resource, this narrative needs to die an unceremonious death. This isn't the 90s, we live in the future.

otterley 5y ago
Please elaborate to those of us who have actually experienced the “swap swamp” within the last year, in the 2020s, and who have enough systems knowledge to properly instrument this stuff. Are you gaslighting us?
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  - otterley 5y ago
    This is a non-sequitur. And you haven't actually substantively rebutted my claim (or anyone else's here, for that matter).
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
xfer 5y ago
Then why is your cloud provider charging by GB-secs? This is the future after all.
jeromegv 5y ago
Anyone with a system that is running full of Electron apps knows how awful it adds up and how slow they are. Sure just 1 app makes hardly a difference. But I have 16GB of RAM and it gets awfully slow very fast with all that electron mess.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  Anyone? I am a member of that set and I will report it is not “awful” at all. I use 5-7 Electron apps on a daily basis and not even once have I had anything resembling memory issues. Nothing gets slow, nothing becomes unusable.
Karunamon 5y ago
As someone who has to occasionally unstick stuck systems by way of `echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches` because memory management in the real world doesn't work the way the people who write condescending sites like linuxatemyram.com say it does: Memory most definitely is a previous resource.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  What’s funny about this comment is how detached from reality it is. If you round, approximately zero users of Electron apps know how to do what you’re talking about, and yet they continue to successfully use Electron apps across a variety of platforms. The fact that you have to finely manage your system’s memory is a you thing, not an Electron thing. The two are entirely orthogonal. Memory is not a precious resource, no matter how much you want to live in a world where your obsessive compulsion to manage it is reasonable.
  - Karunamon 5y ago
    Was it really necessary to have the rude and condescending attitude? While it served the point of illustrating the toxic behavior I took issue with of those who claim memory management is Fine(tm), I don't think it was warranted here. I only care about managing my memory because the consequences of running out of free memory are severe. Linux as shipped by mainstream distros is quite happy to start filling swap (with attendant kswapd CPU usage) when there's multiple gigabytes of pointless inode/dentry cache to evict. Both of these are problems that simply don't exist on Windows and MacOS. Windows because it doesn't pretend half of my system RAM is useful cache, MacOS because it does compression out of the box and doesn't appear to be so aggressive.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      On each and every point your view is only true in very isolated and niche situations, while simultaneously begging the question that you’ve run out of memory in the first place. Linux is not good for desktop environments for exactly the reasons you outline here (and many more). It’s not Electron’s fault you’ve used the wrong tool for your desktop OS.
gkbrk 5y ago
Of course it is a precious resource. Any bytes wasted by bloated electron apps are bytes that your kernel cannot use for disk caches. Pretty much every file I use daily is always in my disk cache, but they won't all fit there if I run a bunch of electron apps.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  False choice; you have memory for both Electron apps and your kernel for disk caching. Besides, with SSDs and NVMe your experience loading data from disk is plenty fast. Again, this is the future; I/O isn’t the bottleneck it once was.
  - otterley 5y ago
    Just because you haven't personally experienced this problem doesn't mean that many others have not. The experience of others is just as valuable as your personal experience, and to denigrate the experiences of others demonstrates a lack of empathy and understanding. Not everyone has an SSD, and not everyone has more than 8GB memory in their laptops. Many laptop manufacturers (including Apple) continue to sell lower-memory systems in droves; and there is a widely-installed base of older computers dating 5 years and even longer.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      My point is that, in 2022, the overwhelming majority of people do have the necessary resources required to run Electron apps on their laptops and desktops. My view is backed up by the fact that people do exactly this, with great success. The complaint about memory is not reflective of the typical user experience.
      - otterley 5y ago
        The fact that multiple people here are telling you that they have experienced RAM shortages and swapping due to excessive consumption speaks for itself.

otterley 5y ago

Please elaborate to those of us who have actually experienced the “swap swamp” within the last year, in the 2020s, and who have enough systems knowledge to properly instrument this stuff. Are you gaslighting us?

TameAntelope 5y ago
- otterley 5y ago
  This is a non-sequitur. And you haven't actually substantively rebutted my claim (or anyone else's here, for that matter).
  - TameAntelope 5y ago

xfer 5y ago

Then why is your cloud provider charging by GB-secs? This is the future after all.

jeromegv 5y ago

Anyone with a system that is running full of Electron apps knows how awful it adds up and how slow they are. Sure just 1 app makes hardly a difference. But I have 16GB of RAM and it gets awfully slow very fast with all that electron mess.

TameAntelope 5y ago
Anyone? I am a member of that set and I will report it is not “awful” at all. I use 5-7 Electron apps on a daily basis and not even once have I had anything resembling memory issues. Nothing gets slow, nothing becomes unusable.

Karunamon 5y ago

As someone who has to occasionally unstick stuck systems by way of `echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches` because memory management in the real world doesn't work the way the people who write condescending sites like linuxatemyram.com say it does: Memory most definitely is a previous resource.

TameAntelope 5y ago
What’s funny about this comment is how detached from reality it is. If you round, approximately zero users of Electron apps know how to do what you’re talking about, and yet they continue to successfully use Electron apps across a variety of platforms. The fact that you have to finely manage your system’s memory is a you thing, not an Electron thing. The two are entirely orthogonal. Memory is not a precious resource, no matter how much you want to live in a world where your obsessive compulsion to manage it is reasonable.
- Karunamon 5y ago
  Was it really necessary to have the rude and condescending attitude? While it served the point of illustrating the toxic behavior I took issue with of those who claim memory management is Fine(tm), I don't think it was warranted here. I only care about managing my memory because the consequences of running out of free memory are severe. Linux as shipped by mainstream distros is quite happy to start filling swap (with attendant kswapd CPU usage) when there's multiple gigabytes of pointless inode/dentry cache to evict. Both of these are problems that simply don't exist on Windows and MacOS. Windows because it doesn't pretend half of my system RAM is useful cache, MacOS because it does compression out of the box and doesn't appear to be so aggressive.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    On each and every point your view is only true in very isolated and niche situations, while simultaneously begging the question that you’ve run out of memory in the first place. Linux is not good for desktop environments for exactly the reasons you outline here (and many more). It’s not Electron’s fault you’ve used the wrong tool for your desktop OS.

gkbrk 5y ago

Of course it is a precious resource. Any bytes wasted by bloated electron apps are bytes that your kernel cannot use for disk caches. Pretty much every file I use daily is always in my disk cache, but they won't all fit there if I run a bunch of electron apps.

TameAntelope 5y ago
False choice; you have memory for both Electron apps and your kernel for disk caching. Besides, with SSDs and NVMe your experience loading data from disk is plenty fast. Again, this is the future; I/O isn’t the bottleneck it once was.
- otterley 5y ago
  Just because you haven't personally experienced this problem doesn't mean that many others have not. The experience of others is just as valuable as your personal experience, and to denigrate the experiences of others demonstrates a lack of empathy and understanding. Not everyone has an SSD, and not everyone has more than 8GB memory in their laptops. Many laptop manufacturers (including Apple) continue to sell lower-memory systems in droves; and there is a widely-installed base of older computers dating 5 years and even longer.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    My point is that, in 2022, the overwhelming majority of people do have the necessary resources required to run Electron apps on their laptops and desktops. My view is backed up by the fact that people do exactly this, with great success. The complaint about memory is not reflective of the typical user experience.
    - otterley 5y ago
      The fact that multiple people here are telling you that they have experienced RAM shortages and swapping due to excessive consumption speaks for itself.