4 ms·

I’m not convinced that this is a better approach than using Svelte 5 + Tauri. Web is here to stay and I’d rather not learn Swift and Kotlin. I know they say the

I’m not convinced that this is a better approach than using Svelte 5 + Tauri. Web is here to stay and I’d rather not learn Swift and Kotlin. I know they say the native UI layer will be as thin as it can get but it still necessitates knowing those 2 langs.

ComputerGuru 3y ago
How are you sold on Svelte 5 when it isn’t even released for download as a beta yet?
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  I saw Runes and that was what I needed to see. Svelte is continuing on its original vision to reach its logical conclusion of easy web application development.
viraptor 3y ago
You say that, but there's a lot of pushback against the electron apps for a while now. Tauri improves on that only a little bit. I'm going to go out of my way and lose some features happily is it means I'm using a native app these days, and I know other people do as well.
- RussianCow 3y ago
  > I'm going to go out of my way and lose some features happily is it means I'm using a native app these days, and I know other people do as well. People say this all the time, but in the real world, whether or not an app is native matters very little compared to everything else about it: features/content, design/UX, etc. And if using web technologies lets you build the app, say, twice as quickly, that means it will have that many more features or be that much more polished than the hypothetical native version, and that could mean the difference between having actual users and not having an app in the first place.
- bhdlr 3y ago
  How do you feel about react native? As a career mobile developer I honestly can't tell the difference between a well made react native app and a true native app
  - high_priest 3y ago
    React is a terrible patchwork of a solution, which literally doubles the UI logic and work needed to get it performant. But it works, it solves the issue of being straight-forward to make platform agnostic by following tutorials. I don't see any other way to go trully multi platform without making separate UI for Android and iOS. Or if you are going desktop, without using a platform agnostic graphics engine like something on top of OpenGL/Vulcan (which, v8 under electron is. A platform agnostic graphics engine). But, you are never going to get the native feeling/snapiness, because you are literally placing a canvas (your, multiplatfom app), on top of another canvas (Native UI engine of your platform) IMO, if you want to build a service for someone, which carries some actual, real world utillity. And you can sell it to someone. You can't go wrong with a WebPageRenderer like Electron and some frameworks if choice underneath. This way, you can easily let the customer in on the joke from whatever device they are comfortable with. And only if you are working with a tool for pro IT or you are well funded, go for experimentation with faster UI. And even then it is not a rule, of which examples are VSCode & intelliJ dev tools. Both built on top of JS & Java platforms, both hindering their true potential like a stone tied the scrotum...
    - r0b05 3y ago
      Great reply. That last sentence was pure art.
    - viraptor 3y ago
      > I don't see any other way to go trully multi platform without making separate UI for Android and iOS. https://avaloniaui.net/ https://avaloniaui.net/
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    Isn't that because React Native literally uses native components? It's not like Flutter which renders its own UI.
- willdr 3y ago
  That pushback is localised to informed people (typically developers) not the public at large. They're using Electron Apps all day.
  - charrondev 3y ago
    I’m a developer and I’m also using web apps or electron apps all day. VS Code, Slack, Spotify, GitHub (for basic pre commit diff review I quite like their app), and figma are all Electron apps and are pretty good today. So many web apps that I can’t count and many of them are passable. Still the Electron apps tend to be more polished (even their web versions).
    - scns 3y ago
      I am so glad that Electron makes must haves for me like Signal possible.
    - Aerbil313 3y ago
      Electron apps are great themselves. It’s when you are in a 3rd world country where all computers are old or when you are working on an underpowered machine it becomes a problem. Spawning a new browser process consumes resources like there is no tomorrow or other programs running simultaneously. This is the problem Tauri addresses.
  - mwcampbell 3y ago
    Then that means we need to do a better job of informing the public about how wasteful our industry is being of their computers and, indirectly, their money. To do otherwise, to keep them in the dark, is disrespectful. My hypothesis is that once non-developers are informed, they'll care. They probably already feel that something is wrong but can't articulate it, and have perhaps resigned themselves to a crappy experience.
  - viraptor 3y ago
    Developers can point at the issue. The less informed say "my computer is getting old" or "can you clean my laptop so it works faster". We're able to say "5 simple apps taking 24GB of ram is absurd".

ComputerGuru 3y ago

How are you sold on Svelte 5 when it isn’t even released for download as a beta yet?

Aerbil313 3y ago
I saw Runes and that was what I needed to see. Svelte is continuing on its original vision to reach its logical conclusion of easy web application development.

viraptor 3y ago

You say that, but there's a lot of pushback against the electron apps for a while now. Tauri improves on that only a little bit. I'm going to go out of my way and lose some features happily is it means I'm using a native app these days, and I know other people do as well.

RussianCow 3y ago
> I'm going to go out of my way and lose some features happily is it means I'm using a native app these days, and I know other people do as well. People say this all the time, but in the real world, whether or not an app is native matters very little compared to everything else about it: features/content, design/UX, etc. And if using web technologies lets you build the app, say, twice as quickly, that means it will have that many more features or be that much more polished than the hypothetical native version, and that could mean the difference between having actual users and not having an app in the first place.
bhdlr 3y ago
How do you feel about react native? As a career mobile developer I honestly can't tell the difference between a well made react native app and a true native app
- high_priest 3y ago
  React is a terrible patchwork of a solution, which literally doubles the UI logic and work needed to get it performant. But it works, it solves the issue of being straight-forward to make platform agnostic by following tutorials. I don't see any other way to go trully multi platform without making separate UI for Android and iOS. Or if you are going desktop, without using a platform agnostic graphics engine like something on top of OpenGL/Vulcan (which, v8 under electron is. A platform agnostic graphics engine). But, you are never going to get the native feeling/snapiness, because you are literally placing a canvas (your, multiplatfom app), on top of another canvas (Native UI engine of your platform) IMO, if you want to build a service for someone, which carries some actual, real world utillity. And you can sell it to someone. You can't go wrong with a WebPageRenderer like Electron and some frameworks if choice underneath. This way, you can easily let the customer in on the joke from whatever device they are comfortable with. And only if you are working with a tool for pro IT or you are well funded, go for experimentation with faster UI. And even then it is not a rule, of which examples are VSCode & intelliJ dev tools. Both built on top of JS & Java platforms, both hindering their true potential like a stone tied the scrotum...
  - r0b05 3y ago
    Great reply. That last sentence was pure art.
  - viraptor 3y ago
    > I don't see any other way to go trully multi platform without making separate UI for Android and iOS. https://avaloniaui.net/ https://avaloniaui.net/
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Isn't that because React Native literally uses native components? It's not like Flutter which renders its own UI.
willdr 3y ago
That pushback is localised to informed people (typically developers) not the public at large. They're using Electron Apps all day.
- charrondev 3y ago
  I’m a developer and I’m also using web apps or electron apps all day. VS Code, Slack, Spotify, GitHub (for basic pre commit diff review I quite like their app), and figma are all Electron apps and are pretty good today. So many web apps that I can’t count and many of them are passable. Still the Electron apps tend to be more polished (even their web versions).
  - scns 3y ago
    I am so glad that Electron makes must haves for me like Signal possible.
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    Electron apps are great themselves. It’s when you are in a 3rd world country where all computers are old or when you are working on an underpowered machine it becomes a problem. Spawning a new browser process consumes resources like there is no tomorrow or other programs running simultaneously. This is the problem Tauri addresses.
- mwcampbell 3y ago
  Then that means we need to do a better job of informing the public about how wasteful our industry is being of their computers and, indirectly, their money. To do otherwise, to keep them in the dark, is disrespectful. My hypothesis is that once non-developers are informed, they'll care. They probably already feel that something is wrong but can't articulate it, and have perhaps resigned themselves to a crappy experience.
- viraptor 3y ago
  Developers can point at the issue. The less informed say "my computer is getting old" or "can you clean my laptop so it works faster". We're able to say "5 simple apps taking 24GB of ram is absurd".