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> This can actually make sense - why not make Electron a shared part of the OS instead of so many apps bundling it. Microsoft did this ages ago, they lost a bi
by com2kid 2y ago
> This can actually make sense - why not make Electron a shared part of the OS instead of so many apps bundling it.
Microsoft did this ages ago, they lost a big anti-trust trial over it.
Aside from that, people ship electron because it works the same across different OSs, if you just want to target one OS, you are better off using that OSs native dev toolkit. Although good luck finding anyone who knows how to write native apps for desktops anymore, and if you are on Windows, good luck figuring out what toolkit you are supposed to use now days!
And Linux has had the decades long problem of QT vs GTK.
So really the only platform with a native toolkit is MacOS, although when it first came out there were actually multiple toolkits to choose from there as well, and now days I think there is some argument over using Swift of not still (not sure, don't keep up).
Or you can just use Electron and skip the above mess entirely.
- qwerty456127 2y ago> people ship electron because it works the same across different OSs Why does Microsoft build the very VisualStudio installer with Electron then? To me it seems companies ship electron because it's easy to hire a JavaScript developer.
- com2kid 2y ago> Why does Microsoft build the very VisualStudio installer with Electron then? > To me it seems companies ship electron because it's easy to hire a JavaScript developer. When I worked at Microsoft, one team I was on, very ironically, had a really hard time finding Windows developers. We actually resorted to drawing straws to see who on the team would have to learn native Windows development! IMHO a large part of the problem is that native Windows development is a career dead end, unless you work at Microsoft, there are relatively few well paying jobs for what is now a niche skillset.
- pjmlp 2y agoUnless one works for the games industry, does IT at big corp, embedded devices programming.
- saagarjha 2y agoNone of which are particularly sexy, unfortunately.
- com2kid 2y agoGames pays badly, big corp IT pays badly, and unfortunately despite the difficulty, embedded tends to pays poorly unless you are at one of the big tech companies.
- pjmlp 2y agoAnd yet the reason why they pay badly is the endless queue of people trying to get one of those jobs.
- pjmlp 2y agoVisual Studio installer uses WPF. They did indeed try to use Electron, and the backslash was big enough they went back to WPF.
- lelanthran 2y ago> Although good luck finding anyone who knows how to write native apps for desktops anymore Hi :-) TBH, in a room full of HN regulars, to find a developer to write a native GUI app, you can throw a brick and hire whoever says "Ow!"