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> because there wasn't another way to do it Precisely. In some domains most customers will always choose the cheaper option. In those cases web apps resulted i

> because there wasn't another way to do it Precisely. In some domains most customers will always choose the cheaper option. In those cases web apps resulted in a race to the bottom. Companies in those domains simply could not afford to cling to native software if they wanted to remain competitive. But of course you still find lots of native software in domains where a critical mass of customers are willing to pay more (or sacrifice functionality) for qualities like performance, security, reliability, etc. For example: games, fintech, military, virtual reality, video production, realtime controllers. I've worked in a couple of those domains and in those cases I am confident that web apps are a very long way away from displacing native applications. > everyone involved in it should be ashamed of the product they're turning out Before judging people for their decisions it's worth understanding why they make them. I know many developers who take pride in writing extremely performant software. All of them have either shifted to work for companies that are willing to pay them to do that or they've swallowed their pride to feed their kids and they scratch that itch by tinkering with open source or game dev on the weekends. > Now we certainly have more options but like, what good is more options that suck? I am not arguing that this situation makes your life better. It doesn't. I sympathize with your frustration and I also like using (and making) performant software. What I am trying to do is explain how we got here because I think it could help us find a way out. We either have to make performant software significantly cheaper to build or we have to convince customers to pay significantly more for it.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
> Before judging people for their decisions it's worth understanding why they make them. I do understand. I understand it's infinitely cheaper to build a shitty webapp and port it to every platform. I know exactly why this stuff is so ubiquitous. Hell, I've even tried it over a few weekends here and there. There was a time I was looking to get into React simply because everyone and their mother is using it for all the reasons you've outlined here. Eventually though I found a job where a native app is much preferred for exactly the reasons you outline here: It runs better, and our leadership is one that's prepared to lay out a chunk of change to have software they're proud to show off and sell. In short: I know exactly what the tradeoffs are and why they're made. Doesn't mean I'm not going to judge them for it. It's great web tooling but when used this way it results in mediocre garbage applications that are magnitudes larger than they need to be, more often than not by some combination of developers or management that fundamentally don't care that it runs and feels like shit, and that tells me something about their long term product viability.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

> Before judging people for their decisions it's worth understanding why they make them. I do understand. I understand it's infinitely cheaper to build a shitty webapp and port it to every platform. I know exactly why this stuff is so ubiquitous. Hell, I've even tried it over a few weekends here and there. There was a time I was looking to get into React simply because everyone and their mother is using it for all the reasons you've outlined here. Eventually though I found a job where a native app is much preferred for exactly the reasons you outline here: It runs better, and our leadership is one that's prepared to lay out a chunk of change to have software they're proud to show off and sell. In short: I know exactly what the tradeoffs are and why they're made. Doesn't mean I'm not going to judge them for it. It's great web tooling but when used this way it results in mediocre garbage applications that are magnitudes larger than they need to be, more often than not by some combination of developers or management that fundamentally don't care that it runs and feels like shit, and that tells me something about their long term product viability.