7 ms·

The next era will be of Offline Apps because of stuff like this

by sheerun 4y ago

NayamAmarshe 4y ago
FOSS and offline-first is the future.
- cassianoleal 4y ago
  2023 is the year of Linux on the desktop?
  - trelane 4y ago
    It was quite some time ago. You didn't get the memo?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
      "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."
  - snapcaster 4y ago
    Yes, along with Beowulf clusters to run our infrastructure
  - bodge5000 4y ago
    Joking aside I think we are getting close, Photon did a lot to bridge with Windows in terms of gaming, GUI is often times at least on par with Windows/MacOS, if not better (obviously thats subjective), and reliability/performance has already been there for a while. That being said, I still think theres more work to do, and arguably the hardest work is ahead.
    - _chu1 4y ago
      Linux is on par with Windows kind of but not really. It's a little ghetto For example, desktop environments are just wonky and buggy most the time, random games don't work, WINE is the worst piece of software on the planet, drivers suck, other random weird issues.
      - Arnavion 4y ago
        All of those are true of Windows too.
      - gabrielgio 4y ago
        > For example, desktop environments are just wonky and buggy most the time, random games don't work, WINE is the worst piece of software on the planet, drivers suck, other random weird issues. When was the last time you have tried linux? With exception of wine, which on its pure form is indeed annoying, nothing else is true. Gnome/KDE/Cinnamon are just fine (not my cup of tea but far from buggy/wonky). I have no problem gaming even on i3. For driver on many distro you can check a box to install the proprietary Nvidia driver. You can use lutris to easy the pain of wine, and if you use proton on steam you are just have to click install like windows. You can check here the compatibility: https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/ Also let's not pretend that windows is walk in the park. I have had my share of problems with drives/games not working on windows as well. That is just the nature of trying to run games on PC. It ain't never gonna be as easy as on consoles.
      - bodge5000 4y ago
        > desktop environments are just wonky and buggy most the time Of course it depends on the DE ou're using, but I'd encourage you to give it another shot. This was certainly the case at one time, but I tried Fedora earlier this year and was shocked by how stable the UX is. Not even in the "wow, this is nowhere near as buggy as it used to be" way. I can't speak for all distros, and I do know some which are less than perfect, but Fedora at least was certainly an eye-opener. > random games don't work, WINE is the worst piece of software on the planet, drivers suck I get why you, as the end user, wouldn't care about excuses, but to be fair none of these are entirely the fault of linux because they're trying to get things to work that the original developer didn't intend to run on linux. It'd be like blaming Microsoft for MacOS apps not working on Windows, or visa versa. Again, as the end user thats not really your problem, if you need to run a piece of software and the OS doesn't run it, it doesn't really matter why, but I don't think this is an example of buggy software on the side of linux devs.
    - cassianoleal 4y ago
      Proton, not Photon. :) It's true though. The Steam Deck is amazing, most games just work. I agree that the GUI part is subjective. I find even the jankiest of Linux DEs to be better than Windows 10 and 11. I still find macOS quite superior, and the one area where this is not going to change any time soon is the cohesion of UI/UX between different apps and the OS. Performance is unbeatable on Linux. Reliability depends a lot on the hardware and distro. This fragmentation makes it less approachable "on the desktop".
      - bodge5000 4y ago
        Glad you mentioned fragmentation, I couldn't think of the word for it and decided it best not start describing it, or you start getting into things like whether or not the distro-specific package manager is truly the best way of handling things (not saying its not), which in many eyes is heresy to even bring up. Cohesion is without a doubt better on MacOS, though again linux is getting closer. A small thing I wish I didn't notice as much as I did is the "top bar" on not-so-well built electron apps. Apps like VSCode and Electron handle this really well, but others don't (Simplenote is the only one that comes to mind). On Windows, this results in a really very striking white top bar, fine if you use a light theme, not so much for dark theme. On linux, or at least gnome, the top bar (whilst being a bit too big for my liking) much more seamlessly integrates with the rest of the OS.
  - NayamAmarshe 4y ago
    Every year is the year of the Linux desktop because the marketshare is ever growing. Linux is not a one-hit wonder.
dr-detroit 4y ago
throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
quite the opposite. the next era will be online-only SaaS apps accessed via rented thin clients tied to your real identity. and your dangerous general purpose legacy hardware will not save you from that, as it will be impossible to access the internet with a device that doesn't disclose your identity. to combat disinformation and hate speech, of course. you vill ovn nothing, und you vill be happy.
- trelane 4y ago
  > as it will be impossible to access the internet with a device that doesn't disclose your identity. and prove the software that's supposed to be running is running.
vnorilo 4y ago
I'm kind or envisioning some young bright engineer realizing they could just store some files locally. "It's like.. we don't need a backend at all!"
- itronitron 4y ago
  And we'll need a programming language that we can write our application in once but will still run on the different operating systems.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    Most programming languages are like that now.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  Happened the other day on HN. "Imagine we could use this to stream movies to astronauts on their way to Mars" / "well... you know local storage is a thing, right?". I don't have a link to that exchange handy, but this for the first time drove home to me the realization that we have a whole generation of people brought up on Internet streaming services, who may not even realize that it's not only possible for the media to be stored locally on their machines, but it's in fact the natural state for data.
- layer8 4y ago
  We are lucky that physics is limiting the latency and bandwidth of the internet, since otherwise local storage could truly disappear.
chasd00 4y ago
I think i've finally reached that point where the latest trend just doesn't make sense to me. In this day and age of ever increasing connectivity and bandwidth offline first web applications just don't make sense. Take an offline-first app running in your browser and then cover the address bar and buttons with a sheet of paper, now you have an Electron app. Why not just use Electron if a desktop/unconnected webapp is what you want to do? Actually, i suppose if the front-end guys just wanted to get rid of the back-end guys then an offline first trend would be a way to further that along haha.

The next era will be of Offline Apps because of stuff like this

NayamAmarshe 4y ago

FOSS and offline-first is the future.

cassianoleal 4y ago
2023 is the year of Linux on the desktop?
- trelane 4y ago
  It was quite some time ago. You didn't get the memo?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."
- snapcaster 4y ago
  Yes, along with Beowulf clusters to run our infrastructure
- bodge5000 4y ago
  Joking aside I think we are getting close, Photon did a lot to bridge with Windows in terms of gaming, GUI is often times at least on par with Windows/MacOS, if not better (obviously thats subjective), and reliability/performance has already been there for a while. That being said, I still think theres more work to do, and arguably the hardest work is ahead.
  - _chu1 4y ago
    Linux is on par with Windows kind of but not really. It's a little ghetto For example, desktop environments are just wonky and buggy most the time, random games don't work, WINE is the worst piece of software on the planet, drivers suck, other random weird issues.
    - Arnavion 4y ago
      All of those are true of Windows too.
    - gabrielgio 4y ago
      > For example, desktop environments are just wonky and buggy most the time, random games don't work, WINE is the worst piece of software on the planet, drivers suck, other random weird issues. When was the last time you have tried linux? With exception of wine, which on its pure form is indeed annoying, nothing else is true. Gnome/KDE/Cinnamon are just fine (not my cup of tea but far from buggy/wonky). I have no problem gaming even on i3. For driver on many distro you can check a box to install the proprietary Nvidia driver. You can use lutris to easy the pain of wine, and if you use proton on steam you are just have to click install like windows. You can check here the compatibility: https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/ Also let's not pretend that windows is walk in the park. I have had my share of problems with drives/games not working on windows as well. That is just the nature of trying to run games on PC. It ain't never gonna be as easy as on consoles.
    - bodge5000 4y ago
      > desktop environments are just wonky and buggy most the time Of course it depends on the DE ou're using, but I'd encourage you to give it another shot. This was certainly the case at one time, but I tried Fedora earlier this year and was shocked by how stable the UX is. Not even in the "wow, this is nowhere near as buggy as it used to be" way. I can't speak for all distros, and I do know some which are less than perfect, but Fedora at least was certainly an eye-opener. > random games don't work, WINE is the worst piece of software on the planet, drivers suck I get why you, as the end user, wouldn't care about excuses, but to be fair none of these are entirely the fault of linux because they're trying to get things to work that the original developer didn't intend to run on linux. It'd be like blaming Microsoft for MacOS apps not working on Windows, or visa versa. Again, as the end user thats not really your problem, if you need to run a piece of software and the OS doesn't run it, it doesn't really matter why, but I don't think this is an example of buggy software on the side of linux devs.
  - cassianoleal 4y ago
    Proton, not Photon. :) It's true though. The Steam Deck is amazing, most games just work. I agree that the GUI part is subjective. I find even the jankiest of Linux DEs to be better than Windows 10 and 11. I still find macOS quite superior, and the one area where this is not going to change any time soon is the cohesion of UI/UX between different apps and the OS. Performance is unbeatable on Linux. Reliability depends a lot on the hardware and distro. This fragmentation makes it less approachable "on the desktop".
    - bodge5000 4y ago
      Glad you mentioned fragmentation, I couldn't think of the word for it and decided it best not start describing it, or you start getting into things like whether or not the distro-specific package manager is truly the best way of handling things (not saying its not), which in many eyes is heresy to even bring up. Cohesion is without a doubt better on MacOS, though again linux is getting closer. A small thing I wish I didn't notice as much as I did is the "top bar" on not-so-well built electron apps. Apps like VSCode and Electron handle this really well, but others don't (Simplenote is the only one that comes to mind). On Windows, this results in a really very striking white top bar, fine if you use a light theme, not so much for dark theme. On linux, or at least gnome, the top bar (whilst being a bit too big for my liking) much more seamlessly integrates with the rest of the OS.
- NayamAmarshe 4y ago
  Every year is the year of the Linux desktop because the marketshare is ever growing. Linux is not a one-hit wonder.

dr-detroit 4y ago

throwaway0x7E6 4y ago

quite the opposite. the next era will be online-only SaaS apps accessed via rented thin clients tied to your real identity. and your dangerous general purpose legacy hardware will not save you from that, as it will be impossible to access the internet with a device that doesn't disclose your identity. to combat disinformation and hate speech, of course. you vill ovn nothing, und you vill be happy.

trelane 4y ago
> as it will be impossible to access the internet with a device that doesn't disclose your identity. and prove the software that's supposed to be running is running.

vnorilo 4y ago

I'm kind or envisioning some young bright engineer realizing they could just store some files locally. "It's like.. we don't need a backend at all!"

itronitron 4y ago
And we'll need a programming language that we can write our application in once but will still run on the different operating systems.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  Most programming languages are like that now.
TeMPOraL 4y ago
Happened the other day on HN. "Imagine we could use this to stream movies to astronauts on their way to Mars" / "well... you know local storage is a thing, right?". I don't have a link to that exchange handy, but this for the first time drove home to me the realization that we have a whole generation of people brought up on Internet streaming services, who may not even realize that it's not only possible for the media to be stored locally on their machines, but it's in fact the natural state for data.
layer8 4y ago
We are lucky that physics is limiting the latency and bandwidth of the internet, since otherwise local storage could truly disappear.

chasd00 4y ago

I think i've finally reached that point where the latest trend just doesn't make sense to me. In this day and age of ever increasing connectivity and bandwidth offline first web applications just don't make sense. Take an offline-first app running in your browser and then cover the address bar and buttons with a sheet of paper, now you have an Electron app. Why not just use Electron if a desktop/unconnected webapp is what you want to do? Actually, i suppose if the front-end guys just wanted to get rid of the back-end guys then an offline first trend would be a way to further that along haha.