9 ms·

Mentioning that it’s Mac only, and that it’s not free software, would help keep plenty of people from wasting their time.

klibertp 5y ago
Thank you - not sure about others, but I'd probably waste some time if not for your comment. I would like to say a bit more, but basically anything of value I could add to the discussion would start a flame war, so I'll have to abstain :(
madduci 5y ago
It's 2022 and still shipping [insert platform here]-only binaries?
- bovermyer 5y ago
  If you want performance, then yes. Shoo! Go back to Electron!
  - dr-detroit 5y ago
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    It's still possible to ship cross-platform native software. People just pretend like it doesn't exist because it's too hard, and so I respond by pretending like their software doesn't exist.
    - bovermyer 5y ago
      You're making the assumption that everyone _wants_ to target as many platforms as possible, have the resources to do so, and are just too lazy to do so. In other words, you're assuming that people don't build for your platform because they're "bad." Why so cynical?
      - ovao 5y ago
        It’s a weird attitude. The desktop app community in particular has always had a pretty strong sub-community within it that’s coalesced around the idea of “we’re just going to focus on making the best Mac apps possible”. Which, even if you’re a staunch Windows user, seems fine? If you’re a developer who likes a platform and wants to build software for that platform, to you I’d say: go nuts. There are plenty of alternatives, and that’s particularly true in this space. I can understand disappointment around great apps that don’t ever cross the platform threshold, totally, but I’ve never thought of that as terrible, or that the developers themselves are bad. This attitude of “you don’t like what I like so you’re just wasting my time” is super strange.
    - hans1729 5y ago
      If it's hard, people are not going to spend their attention on it unless deemed worthy. Like it or not, there is a class of IT-professionals who settled on the idea that macOS won the desktop-game, reasoning that Windows is and will remain trash, and that Linux can't deliver a comparable quality in UX. Someone who wants to focus on building a product can't dedicate the same amount of energy opting for cross-platform, and that's fair. You don't have to pretend their software doesn't exist - if you're not a mac-user, it literally doesn't exist for you, and that's okay.
      - SleepyMyroslav 5y ago
        Its funny that gaming industry has settled on the idea that Windows won the desktop-game, reasoning that Linux is and will remain trash, and that macOS can't deliver comparable performance. This is not meant to show that some opinion is better just highlight that people have narrow tunnel vision on what is in front of them and tend to ignore other options without consideration.
        smoldesu 5y ago
        > and that macOS can't deliver comparable performance That's not the case at all. The problem is that, much like shipping native apps, supporting a second graphics API for Mac/Linux is a pain in the ass, so nobody does it. On MacOS, OpenGL is too slow for most modern titles and Metal is too high-level and doesn't have good language bindings. Same goes for why games run better on Linux than they do on MacOS; translating DirectX to Metal is simply too slow, even for the highest-end GPUs that Apple ships. An M1 Max will struggle to get 1050Ti-tier performance when running games through MoltenVK, and doing the same thing through OpenGL certainly doesn't improve the situation.
        maleldil 5y ago
        You just agreed with them. The M1 machines are plenty powerful, we all know that, but the OS doesn't give enough support for decent performance that even Linux can achieve.
    - throwaddzuzxd 5y ago
      What's the correct way to ship cross platform native software that doesn't require me to write it in C or C++?
      - innocentoldguy 5y ago
        I don't think there is a single "correct" way. There are several non-C/C++ ways like Java, Electron, BeeWare, etc., but all of them tend to stand out when compared to native apps, regardless of what operating system you're using.
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        Depends on how much compromise you want. For minimal compromise, you'd write it in Rust/C/C++ with a GUI toolkit that leverages the native stylesheet to render everything out. It'll be fast, it will run cross-platform, and it will take forever to build. However, this is the """right""" way to do it, and the one that people will complain least about. There's a number of tools that are distributed this way, but again, it's a pain. For medium compromise, you'd probably end up with a runtime like Java or dotnet. These runtimes have well-established, long-running GUI projects that seek to tackle this exact issue, and for most people they balance ease of development, speed and "good enough" UI. It's not perfect, but a lot of one-man dev teams will end up choosing this when they want to get on every platform with a native-enough UI. For maximum compromise, you can ship Electron with JS bindings to a native UI. This sucks. Please don't do this. It's an option though, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it. It's barely better than just putting a website in a desktop runtime, and if you aren't careful you can end up making it a whole lot worse. It's definitely possible to do, though. If you want to charge money for your application, I should hope you're building a minimal-compromise program.
      - madduci 5y ago
        There are Go and Python bindings for Qt. Also Rust has now an early support for it
    - innocentoldguy 5y ago
      I totally understand your perspective, but I'm the opposite. I prefer native apps that utilize the great libraries provided by the OS and function in harmony with the OS (In my case, things like Scrivener, Kaleidoscope, Bear, Things, Alfred, etc.). I only fall back to using cross-platform apps if a native app isn't available, or if the cross-platform app is done really well (e.g., Logseq, VS Code, etc.). I think it's a good thing that there are people who want to work to satisfy the desires of your niche as well as mine, so we can both be happy and productive.
  - leaflets2 5y ago
    On my laptop, in a VM even, VSCode is fast, hasn't been an issue. I'm surprised "everyone" complains (But VSCode's search functionality is annoying! Here Zas looks lovely ... But, Mac, so, no)
  - madduci 5y ago
    Electron isn't the only cross platform solution. It is just the most expensive one.
- hsn915 5y ago
  Is this a serious comment? Shipping native platform binaries is the only reliable way to ship high quality software. Specially in 2022 with all the garbage floating around in virtual machines and "electron" bloatware.
  - madduci 5y ago
    Ever heard of Qt, Xamarin, WxWidgets or FLTK? Electron isn't the only game in the house.
    - hsn915 5y ago
      Maybe I misunderstood the comment I was replying to. I was replying about the "binaries" part. Binaries are always paltform specific. The "only" part of "platform-only" - I can sympathize with. There are some tools I would like to try but I can't because they are windows only. That said, it doesn't to me like any of the librarires/tools mentioned are good enough. Qt is in C++ but from what I've heard its performance is abysmal - at least it's not good enough to justify writing something in Qt instead of html/js/css. Xamarin I had to use one time and as far as I'm concerned, the DX is bad and the end result is also bad. Again, not good enough to justify using it instead of html/js/css.
      - OvermindDL1 5y ago
        Honestly curious, but of all the things I've heard people say about QT it could never be about poor performance, it's generally consistently regarded as the fastest complete GUI toolkit out. Even more so because the Linux desktop environment KDE is built in it and is consistently shown to be both the fastest and lowest memory of near all Linux desktop environments (and certainly among all the big ones), including ones designed to be fast and low memory. Where did this poor performance thing come from and am I missing something lately?
        hsn915 5y ago
        This is the first time I hear this compliment about KDE: being high performance and low memory usage. It's the exact opposite in my experience. The worst performance and most resource hungry desktop environment. Though to be honest it's been more than 5 years since I tried, so things might have changed since then ... but I really doubt it.
nu11ptr 5y ago
This wouldn't keep me from checking it out IF it ran on Linux (they say it likely will eventually) and IF it was significantly better than the competition (vscode+rust-analyzer or intellij+rust plugin). The challenge proprietary software has at this point in certain categories like editors/IDEs is that the free stuff is quite good, so it will have to be MUCH better to succeed. Possible, but hard.
- jackosdev 5y ago
  In one of those Harvard blitz scale talks a guy was saying you need to be at least 10x on a dimension people care about to enter an already established market. I guess this would be possible for the VS Code market if you could get the same features in something like Tauri where you can dramatically improve the performance and binary size. But VS Code just has so many fantastic features and extensions now, and is still improving so much every month that I don't know if this will ever happen, would take an enormous talented team to catch up, and how do you do such a thing competing against a product that's completely free.
  - mrtesthah 5y ago
    How about compatibility with VS code extensions?
bborud 5y ago
I think it is okay to assume that people who frequent a forum mostly inhabited by people who create software for a living would be okay with software that you would have to pay for.
- delusional 5y ago
  I don't mind that I have to pay for it. I do mind that it's not free software.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    Problem is, people mostly don't pay for free software. Even if they know how hard it is to make it. The free software we have, we got thanks to corporate charity.
    - delusional 5y ago
      I don't agree. Most of the free software on my desktop was made by individuals who in their spare time. That doesn't mean they don't get paid way too little, so your points still stands, but i object to the "corporate charity" angle. Most corporations take way more than they give back.
      - emteycz 5y ago
        What OS do you run? I'd like that, but the only thing of this sort that has potential to be as usable as a Linux system is BSD, which doesn't run on my machines. I hope SerenityOS takes off. It's looking good so far.
      - bborud 5y ago
        Well, there are degrees. All the software I've written within recent memory (last 5-6 years or so) has software that was written by some commercial entity in its dependency graph. Usually as a direct dependency. Of course it varies how expensive it would be for me to replace that software. In some cases I'm sure I could find free alternatives, but it may not be as high quality, performant, correct or convenient to use. Which is another way of saying: it'd cost me more effort. I can tell myself that I run my software on a free OS, but I know full well that much (if not most) of the heavy lifting on Linux was paid for by companies. Even in cases where the company isn't explicitly credited (as has been the case in several companies I've worked for that had people getting paid to contribute to the Linux kernel). I'm sure I have written more trivial things in the past 5-6 years that has no external dependencies paid for by companies. Of course, if you ignore that the compiler, standard library, most of the toolchain and the IDE I use to write that software is all being developed by companies. I bet that if you really were to look at what's between the pixels on your screen and the CPU, you'd probably find that most of the software you think of as written by individuals for free, results in code paths that spend a lot of time in code that was developed on some company's dime. I'm also interested in what you mean by "most corporations take way more than they give back". Do you mean that monetizing free software is taking something away from free software? As a thought experiment: imagine that no for-profit company were to use open source software at all. Do you see where I'm going? You do understand that there is a symbiotic relationship here, right?
marcodiego 5y ago
Thanks for the warning!

klibertp 5y ago

Thank you - not sure about others, but I'd probably waste some time if not for your comment. I would like to say a bit more, but basically anything of value I could add to the discussion would start a flame war, so I'll have to abstain :(

madduci 5y ago

It's 2022 and still shipping [insert platform here]-only binaries?

bovermyer 5y ago
If you want performance, then yes. Shoo! Go back to Electron!
- dr-detroit 5y ago
- smoldesu 5y ago
  It's still possible to ship cross-platform native software. People just pretend like it doesn't exist because it's too hard, and so I respond by pretending like their software doesn't exist.
  - bovermyer 5y ago
    You're making the assumption that everyone _wants_ to target as many platforms as possible, have the resources to do so, and are just too lazy to do so. In other words, you're assuming that people don't build for your platform because they're "bad." Why so cynical?
    - ovao 5y ago
      It’s a weird attitude. The desktop app community in particular has always had a pretty strong sub-community within it that’s coalesced around the idea of “we’re just going to focus on making the best Mac apps possible”. Which, even if you’re a staunch Windows user, seems fine? If you’re a developer who likes a platform and wants to build software for that platform, to you I’d say: go nuts. There are plenty of alternatives, and that’s particularly true in this space. I can understand disappointment around great apps that don’t ever cross the platform threshold, totally, but I’ve never thought of that as terrible, or that the developers themselves are bad. This attitude of “you don’t like what I like so you’re just wasting my time” is super strange.
  - hans1729 5y ago
    If it's hard, people are not going to spend their attention on it unless deemed worthy. Like it or not, there is a class of IT-professionals who settled on the idea that macOS won the desktop-game, reasoning that Windows is and will remain trash, and that Linux can't deliver a comparable quality in UX. Someone who wants to focus on building a product can't dedicate the same amount of energy opting for cross-platform, and that's fair. You don't have to pretend their software doesn't exist - if you're not a mac-user, it literally doesn't exist for you, and that's okay.
    - SleepyMyroslav 5y ago
      Its funny that gaming industry has settled on the idea that Windows won the desktop-game, reasoning that Linux is and will remain trash, and that macOS can't deliver comparable performance. This is not meant to show that some opinion is better just highlight that people have narrow tunnel vision on what is in front of them and tend to ignore other options without consideration.
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        > and that macOS can't deliver comparable performance That's not the case at all. The problem is that, much like shipping native apps, supporting a second graphics API for Mac/Linux is a pain in the ass, so nobody does it. On MacOS, OpenGL is too slow for most modern titles and Metal is too high-level and doesn't have good language bindings. Same goes for why games run better on Linux than they do on MacOS; translating DirectX to Metal is simply too slow, even for the highest-end GPUs that Apple ships. An M1 Max will struggle to get 1050Ti-tier performance when running games through MoltenVK, and doing the same thing through OpenGL certainly doesn't improve the situation.
        maleldil 5y ago
        You just agreed with them. The M1 machines are plenty powerful, we all know that, but the OS doesn't give enough support for decent performance that even Linux can achieve.
  - throwaddzuzxd 5y ago
    What's the correct way to ship cross platform native software that doesn't require me to write it in C or C++?
    - innocentoldguy 5y ago
      I don't think there is a single "correct" way. There are several non-C/C++ ways like Java, Electron, BeeWare, etc., but all of them tend to stand out when compared to native apps, regardless of what operating system you're using.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Depends on how much compromise you want. For minimal compromise, you'd write it in Rust/C/C++ with a GUI toolkit that leverages the native stylesheet to render everything out. It'll be fast, it will run cross-platform, and it will take forever to build. However, this is the """right""" way to do it, and the one that people will complain least about. There's a number of tools that are distributed this way, but again, it's a pain. For medium compromise, you'd probably end up with a runtime like Java or dotnet. These runtimes have well-established, long-running GUI projects that seek to tackle this exact issue, and for most people they balance ease of development, speed and "good enough" UI. It's not perfect, but a lot of one-man dev teams will end up choosing this when they want to get on every platform with a native-enough UI. For maximum compromise, you can ship Electron with JS bindings to a native UI. This sucks. Please don't do this. It's an option though, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it. It's barely better than just putting a website in a desktop runtime, and if you aren't careful you can end up making it a whole lot worse. It's definitely possible to do, though. If you want to charge money for your application, I should hope you're building a minimal-compromise program.
    - madduci 5y ago
      There are Go and Python bindings for Qt. Also Rust has now an early support for it
  - innocentoldguy 5y ago
    I totally understand your perspective, but I'm the opposite. I prefer native apps that utilize the great libraries provided by the OS and function in harmony with the OS (In my case, things like Scrivener, Kaleidoscope, Bear, Things, Alfred, etc.). I only fall back to using cross-platform apps if a native app isn't available, or if the cross-platform app is done really well (e.g., Logseq, VS Code, etc.). I think it's a good thing that there are people who want to work to satisfy the desires of your niche as well as mine, so we can both be happy and productive.
- leaflets2 5y ago
  On my laptop, in a VM even, VSCode is fast, hasn't been an issue. I'm surprised "everyone" complains (But VSCode's search functionality is annoying! Here Zas looks lovely ... But, Mac, so, no)
- madduci 5y ago
  Electron isn't the only cross platform solution. It is just the most expensive one.
hsn915 5y ago
Is this a serious comment? Shipping native platform binaries is the only reliable way to ship high quality software. Specially in 2022 with all the garbage floating around in virtual machines and "electron" bloatware.
- madduci 5y ago
  Ever heard of Qt, Xamarin, WxWidgets or FLTK? Electron isn't the only game in the house.
  - hsn915 5y ago
    Maybe I misunderstood the comment I was replying to. I was replying about the "binaries" part. Binaries are always paltform specific. The "only" part of "platform-only" - I can sympathize with. There are some tools I would like to try but I can't because they are windows only. That said, it doesn't to me like any of the librarires/tools mentioned are good enough. Qt is in C++ but from what I've heard its performance is abysmal - at least it's not good enough to justify writing something in Qt instead of html/js/css. Xamarin I had to use one time and as far as I'm concerned, the DX is bad and the end result is also bad. Again, not good enough to justify using it instead of html/js/css.
    - OvermindDL1 5y ago
      Honestly curious, but of all the things I've heard people say about QT it could never be about poor performance, it's generally consistently regarded as the fastest complete GUI toolkit out. Even more so because the Linux desktop environment KDE is built in it and is consistently shown to be both the fastest and lowest memory of near all Linux desktop environments (and certainly among all the big ones), including ones designed to be fast and low memory. Where did this poor performance thing come from and am I missing something lately?
      - hsn915 5y ago
        This is the first time I hear this compliment about KDE: being high performance and low memory usage. It's the exact opposite in my experience. The worst performance and most resource hungry desktop environment. Though to be honest it's been more than 5 years since I tried, so things might have changed since then ... but I really doubt it.

nu11ptr 5y ago

This wouldn't keep me from checking it out IF it ran on Linux (they say it likely will eventually) and IF it was significantly better than the competition (vscode+rust-analyzer or intellij+rust plugin). The challenge proprietary software has at this point in certain categories like editors/IDEs is that the free stuff is quite good, so it will have to be MUCH better to succeed. Possible, but hard.

jackosdev 5y ago
In one of those Harvard blitz scale talks a guy was saying you need to be at least 10x on a dimension people care about to enter an already established market. I guess this would be possible for the VS Code market if you could get the same features in something like Tauri where you can dramatically improve the performance and binary size. But VS Code just has so many fantastic features and extensions now, and is still improving so much every month that I don't know if this will ever happen, would take an enormous talented team to catch up, and how do you do such a thing competing against a product that's completely free.
- mrtesthah 5y ago
  How about compatibility with VS code extensions?

bborud 5y ago

I think it is okay to assume that people who frequent a forum mostly inhabited by people who create software for a living would be okay with software that you would have to pay for.

delusional 5y ago
I don't mind that I have to pay for it. I do mind that it's not free software.
- emteycz 5y ago
  Problem is, people mostly don't pay for free software. Even if they know how hard it is to make it. The free software we have, we got thanks to corporate charity.
  - delusional 5y ago
    I don't agree. Most of the free software on my desktop was made by individuals who in their spare time. That doesn't mean they don't get paid way too little, so your points still stands, but i object to the "corporate charity" angle. Most corporations take way more than they give back.
    - emteycz 5y ago
      What OS do you run? I'd like that, but the only thing of this sort that has potential to be as usable as a Linux system is BSD, which doesn't run on my machines. I hope SerenityOS takes off. It's looking good so far.
    - bborud 5y ago
      Well, there are degrees. All the software I've written within recent memory (last 5-6 years or so) has software that was written by some commercial entity in its dependency graph. Usually as a direct dependency. Of course it varies how expensive it would be for me to replace that software. In some cases I'm sure I could find free alternatives, but it may not be as high quality, performant, correct or convenient to use. Which is another way of saying: it'd cost me more effort. I can tell myself that I run my software on a free OS, but I know full well that much (if not most) of the heavy lifting on Linux was paid for by companies. Even in cases where the company isn't explicitly credited (as has been the case in several companies I've worked for that had people getting paid to contribute to the Linux kernel). I'm sure I have written more trivial things in the past 5-6 years that has no external dependencies paid for by companies. Of course, if you ignore that the compiler, standard library, most of the toolchain and the IDE I use to write that software is all being developed by companies. I bet that if you really were to look at what's between the pixels on your screen and the CPU, you'd probably find that most of the software you think of as written by individuals for free, results in code paths that spend a lot of time in code that was developed on some company's dime. I'm also interested in what you mean by "most corporations take way more than they give back". Do you mean that monetizing free software is taking something away from free software? As a thought experiment: imagine that no for-profit company were to use open source software at all. Do you see where I'm going? You do understand that there is a symbiotic relationship here, right?

marcodiego 5y ago

Thanks for the warning!