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> All of your changes are saved locally. Ensō works perfectly fine even without internet connection. I know this is a sign of the times and so I'm not blaming

> All of your changes are saved locally. Ensō works perfectly fine even without internet connection. I know this is a sign of the times and so I'm not blaming the author, but Christ, what a depressing development that this is enough of a feature to be one of the headline hero paragraphs on the landing page.

nine_k 3y ago
Developing for the web client and having centralized control over both code and data on your server is just so much easier for the developer. Not necessarily the best client experience, but the difference in development and support cost is huge. Thus any local-first software is more rare, if it has to also include an online component. It's just harder.
deleted 3y ago
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rpastuszak 3y ago
Author here: 0) Ensō's on the top page of HN? what the hell! 1) it's fun to use Ensō in the middle of the woods with no internet access (done that), but 2) the main reason I build web apps this way is that following offline-first (generally) results in a better user experience, especially for people without access to optic fibre or 5G[*]. And with Ensō this was trivial to implement. 3) the second reason I do that: often it's much easier to write offline first apps. 10 years ago we already had tools like pouchdb to do so much heavy lifting for us. [*] Ironically, having lived in Shoreditch for 7 years helped me develop this mindset, as every single flat I rented there turned out to be the one without fibre. In one of them the windows even acted as a Faraday cage, so no luck with 4G!
- Analemma_ 3y ago
  Yeah, I want to be totally clear that this wasn't a dig at you - Ensō looks really cool and I'm glad to see a web application embrace offline-first development. This was more just generic griping at how the web has become the only real cross-platform application development environment, regardless of how well it's actually fit for that purpose. But that has nothing to do with you - keep rocking with this :)
- jll29 3y ago
  Kudos for the "offline first" approach. But Shoreditch? ;) When I worked there (2015) I was wondering where all the alleged hipsters were of the "Silicon Roundabout", since all of the people in cafes had FB on their laptop screens instead of code, and it wasn't cheap either. Not sure if it changed for better or worse since, but since then Google closed Campus.

nine_k 3y ago

Developing for the web client and having centralized control over both code and data on your server is just so much easier for the developer. Not necessarily the best client experience, but the difference in development and support cost is huge. Thus any local-first software is more rare, if it has to also include an online component. It's just harder.

deleted 3y ago

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rpastuszak 3y ago

Author here: 0) Ensō's on the top page of HN? what the hell! 1) it's fun to use Ensō in the middle of the woods with no internet access (done that), but 2) the main reason I build web apps this way is that following offline-first (generally) results in a better user experience, especially for people without access to optic fibre or 5G[*]. And with Ensō this was trivial to implement. 3) the second reason I do that: often it's much easier to write offline first apps. 10 years ago we already had tools like pouchdb to do so much heavy lifting for us. [*] Ironically, having lived in Shoreditch for 7 years helped me develop this mindset, as every single flat I rented there turned out to be the one without fibre. In one of them the windows even acted as a Faraday cage, so no luck with 4G!

Analemma_ 3y ago
Yeah, I want to be totally clear that this wasn't a dig at you - Ensō looks really cool and I'm glad to see a web application embrace offline-first development. This was more just generic griping at how the web has become the only real cross-platform application development environment, regardless of how well it's actually fit for that purpose. But that has nothing to do with you - keep rocking with this :)
jll29 3y ago
Kudos for the "offline first" approach. But Shoreditch? ;) When I worked there (2015) I was wondering where all the alleged hipsters were of the "Silicon Roundabout", since all of the people in cafes had FB on their laptop screens instead of code, and it wasn't cheap either. Not sure if it changed for better or worse since, but since then Google closed Campus.