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> I'd rather build an app that doesn't require me to start with the question "which OS and window environment are you using?" followed by "sorry, we couldn't af

> I'd rather build an app that doesn't require me to start with the question "which OS and window environment are you using?" followed by "sorry, we couldn't afford to build for that". i can’t help but feel your catastrophising a bit here. in any case, you have options that would greatly ease pains of this sort, wx, QT, SDL, etc. there are many. the point is that the problem with electron isn’t UI abstraction in general, just this particular implementation of it. > [it’s safer to assume] most users have enough ram to run a chrome+node instance. so in an effort to avoid saying that you “couldn’t afford some feature”, you’re presuming that users can afford the resources for another multi-gigabyte ram hog, which is most likely, for all intents and purposes, a pretty wrapper around JSON getters and setters? > The failure of standardizing UI has led to this. Electron is a stop-gap, a good one. As a Linux user, I am very happy that Electron exists, otherwise I would have far fewer apps. strong disagree here. i’d bet that electron and it’s ecosystem exists strictly only because of the abundance of engineers proficient in javascript. electron absolutely did not standardise UI. sorry if that’s come across as inflammatory, it’s not intentional. i guess i get a bit irrationally upset when i see i can trigger a full page refresh of what should be a native application when i hit CTRL+shift+R.

porcoda 5y ago
> i’d bet that electron and it’s ecosystem exists strictly only because of the abundance of engineers proficient in javascript. electron absolutely did not standardise UI. Bingo. We have a glut of developers who only really know web tech, and when they decide they want to do something for the desktop they just go with what they know instead of learning something different. The argument about portability that people make in support of Electron-based stuff doesn't hold up when you see that there exist cross-platform tools for other languages. At the end of the day, the tech world is crawling with JS developers who appear to be unmotivated to learn something other than JS (or one of its transpiled cousins).
- klabb3 5y ago
  > they decide they want to do something for the desktop they just go with what they know instead of learning something different Shouldn't the burden of proof be reversed? If the stack works, why relearn in a different stack? The HN crowd loves to shit on web developers for not being good enough even at their own domain, yet at the same time encourage them to learn new tech. Proficiency takes time. As for the environment itself, web has the best inspect/debugging experience by far, an extremely capable and flexible layout engine and accessibility built in. It's also not controlled by a company, and has ubiquitous platform support. Obviously there's a network effect, which to a large extent led to this situation. But it also makes sense to learn today. If I was advising a junior it'd be criminally myopic to suggest learning Qt instead of web.
klabb3 5y ago
> sorry if that’s come across as inflammatory No worries at all. If everyone shared my opinions I'd go somewhere else (or question my sanity). Also, I'm triggered by unnecessary bloat as well. > electron absolutely did not standardise UI. Of course not! > you have options that would greatly ease pains of this sort, wx, QT, SDL, etc Yes, but they really need to work on web too, if you have a web app that shares code with the native one. Otherwise you still have two UI stacks. I was seriously considering flutter, but dart is a small ecosystem and most importantly if Google pulls their support it will almost certainly die. Web tech isn't perfect, but it's very mature and standardized. Sure, you can bloat your app/page, but if you are just moderately responsible things are very snappy. Today, you don't even have to use JS with wasm. Tauri allows me to use web tech with much lighter weight OS webviews and no Node. > you’re presuming that users can afford the resources for another multi-gigabyte ram hog If your crud like app is anywhere near 1GB in ram, there are other issues. Electron adds maybe 200Mb overhead, the rest is the web app itself. App bloat is a separate issue.

porcoda 5y ago

> i’d bet that electron and it’s ecosystem exists strictly only because of the abundance of engineers proficient in javascript. electron absolutely did not standardise UI. Bingo. We have a glut of developers who only really know web tech, and when they decide they want to do something for the desktop they just go with what they know instead of learning something different. The argument about portability that people make in support of Electron-based stuff doesn't hold up when you see that there exist cross-platform tools for other languages. At the end of the day, the tech world is crawling with JS developers who appear to be unmotivated to learn something other than JS (or one of its transpiled cousins).

klabb3 5y ago
> they decide they want to do something for the desktop they just go with what they know instead of learning something different Shouldn't the burden of proof be reversed? If the stack works, why relearn in a different stack? The HN crowd loves to shit on web developers for not being good enough even at their own domain, yet at the same time encourage them to learn new tech. Proficiency takes time. As for the environment itself, web has the best inspect/debugging experience by far, an extremely capable and flexible layout engine and accessibility built in. It's also not controlled by a company, and has ubiquitous platform support. Obviously there's a network effect, which to a large extent led to this situation. But it also makes sense to learn today. If I was advising a junior it'd be criminally myopic to suggest learning Qt instead of web.

klabb3 5y ago

> sorry if that’s come across as inflammatory No worries at all. If everyone shared my opinions I'd go somewhere else (or question my sanity). Also, I'm triggered by unnecessary bloat as well. > electron absolutely did not standardise UI. Of course not! > you have options that would greatly ease pains of this sort, wx, QT, SDL, etc Yes, but they really need to work on web too, if you have a web app that shares code with the native one. Otherwise you still have two UI stacks. I was seriously considering flutter, but dart is a small ecosystem and most importantly if Google pulls their support it will almost certainly die. Web tech isn't perfect, but it's very mature and standardized. Sure, you can bloat your app/page, but if you are just moderately responsible things are very snappy. Today, you don't even have to use JS with wasm. Tauri allows me to use web tech with much lighter weight OS webviews and no Node. > you’re presuming that users can afford the resources for another multi-gigabyte ram hog If your crud like app is anywhere near 1GB in ram, there are other issues. Electron adds maybe 200Mb overhead, the rest is the web app itself. App bloat is a separate issue.