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Sometimes I see people mourn a mythical reality where cross-platform desktop development is simple, easy, and preferred. They lay the blame for stagnation in cr

Sometimes I see people mourn a mythical reality where cross-platform desktop development is simple, easy, and preferred. They lay the blame for stagnation in cross-platform development on the web. I just don't get it. The web is a sandboxed environment that everyone can run. I can understand hating Electron, but the web? I don't think users these days want to install Netflix or Facebook on their desktops.

whatevaa 3y ago
People want native applications, but they will not want to pay for it. Cross platforms toolkits suck. There are frameworks for Android/IOS cross platform development like Xamarin and they suck, companies tend to move away from them after some time as more integrations to the platform are desired. Windows no longer even has a proper native toolkit unless you use old Win32/WPF, I hold MAUI or whatever they call it today a joke. Linux has GTK/QT clusterfuck. Try makin non-OSS application for Linux. There isn't even a single Linux target, instead you need to target each distribution to do it properly, there are many, and few users. Clusterfuck. Only MacOS has a decent desktop toolkit. Electron/Web let's you bypass all this shit, mostly. Also, the only reason why Linux desktop is actually useful to me is those webapps those people hate. It just makes sense to target web first. I just wish there was more separation of website and webapp in the browsers. Two different things, in my opinion.
- Capricorn2481 3y ago
  > People want native applications When? You think the average consumer wants to download a facebook app on their laptop? To be negged with updates vs just visiting the site? I buy that the HN crowd wants native apps.
- SahAssar 3y ago
  > People want native applications I and many others really, really don't. I prefer webapps for almost everything except things that need full access to things like filesystems, hardware, etc. I want my mail, calendar, chat, videos, etc. to fully live in my browser where I have consistent management of tabs, bookmarks, extensions, logins and so on. I also really, really don't want to install applications unless needed. > I just wish there was more separation of website and webapp in the browsers Sure, that might be nice, but it also might create the opportunity for webapps to require being put in the "webapp" pool, and I really like just being able to run them as a website once and then just close the tab. I think what you are describing is mostly what we already have with PWAs?

whatevaa 3y ago

People want native applications, but they will not want to pay for it. Cross platforms toolkits suck. There are frameworks for Android/IOS cross platform development like Xamarin and they suck, companies tend to move away from them after some time as more integrations to the platform are desired. Windows no longer even has a proper native toolkit unless you use old Win32/WPF, I hold MAUI or whatever they call it today a joke. Linux has GTK/QT clusterfuck. Try makin non-OSS application for Linux. There isn't even a single Linux target, instead you need to target each distribution to do it properly, there are many, and few users. Clusterfuck. Only MacOS has a decent desktop toolkit. Electron/Web let's you bypass all this shit, mostly. Also, the only reason why Linux desktop is actually useful to me is those webapps those people hate. It just makes sense to target web first. I just wish there was more separation of website and webapp in the browsers. Two different things, in my opinion.

Capricorn2481 3y ago
> People want native applications When? You think the average consumer wants to download a facebook app on their laptop? To be negged with updates vs just visiting the site? I buy that the HN crowd wants native apps.
SahAssar 3y ago
> People want native applications I and many others really, really don't. I prefer webapps for almost everything except things that need full access to things like filesystems, hardware, etc. I want my mail, calendar, chat, videos, etc. to fully live in my browser where I have consistent management of tabs, bookmarks, extensions, logins and so on. I also really, really don't want to install applications unless needed. > I just wish there was more separation of website and webapp in the browsers Sure, that might be nice, but it also might create the opportunity for webapps to require being put in the "webapp" pool, and I really like just being able to run them as a website once and then just close the tab. I think what you are describing is mostly what we already have with PWAs?