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> SWEs not being able to build (native) desktop apps or apps that don't use a browser is a skill issue. It's a runtime issue. If developing a native app requir

> SWEs not being able to build (native) desktop apps or apps that don't use a browser is a skill issue. It's a runtime issue. If developing a native app requires an expensive SDK, complex distribution agreement or multiplatform codebase, any rational software engineer will choose to ship once and run anywhere. Anything else is a waste of time and money unless management dictates otherwise. Electron will be king until shipping native interfaces is as equally accessible as web development.

zoom6628 2y ago
This. And I live in hope that WASM runtimes can address some or all of this one day.
- xp84 2y ago
  So then we can ship a binary on top of JavaScript in a browser engine on top of the native platform! ;)
  - vram22 2y ago
    Yeah!!! Time for Greenspun's eleventh rule: ;) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule
  - hulitu 2y ago
    We really need morw abstraction layers. /s
TeMPOraL 2y ago
> Anything else is a waste of time and money unless management dictates otherwise. Management won't say otherwise because management relies on what software engineers tell them, as it's the job of the engineer to consider quality, reliability and operational efficiency, and advise management on the tradeoffs involved. An engineer can choose to not pick the cheapest possible option. Your "rational software engineer" instead sounds more like someone that's happy to go with substandard solution that's bad for the user and bad for the entire field of software engineering (the more it's used, the more it's normalized), and then hide behind greedy management and penny-pinching beancounters. People sometimes wonder if software wouldn't get better (boy technologically and socially) if software engineering was a licensed profession. Well, we don't deserve to be licensed professionals, because we've abandoned respect and loyalty to our field, and became just "professionals" in the cultural sense of doing cheapest stuff the fastest and dumping all externalities on customers (on third parties).
- sigseg1v 2y ago
  > People sometimes wonder if software wouldn't get better (boy technologically and socially) if software engineering was a licensed profession. In some countries such as Canada, it is a licensed profession and if you refer yourself as an engineer without holding a PEng you can have legal action taken against you. However, all this has done is make it such that nobody actually holds a software PEng. The only software PEng I know works at the university nearby and I've never met a colleague with designation. Everyone gets a SEng degree but knows no PEng to do a mentorship under so never gets designated. Lack of participation is likely a contributor to being an underdeveloped field. General public confusion from positions in the USA that wildly throw around the title "software engineer" for non-PEng doesn't help.
- nobankai 2y ago
  Conflating fewer native interfaces with the loss of respect software engineers have is like saying plumbers all went soft at the invention of the plunger. Native apps are a waste of time if you want to sell a successful product. It really just is that simple, I'm sorry all the success stories like Slack don't use the native interface on your OS but that doesn't justify attacking the field as a whole. It's true; this is and will be an OEM issue until the end of software engineering itself. Manufacturers will either align their incentives or get thrown to the wayside by everyone that makes money today.
- bitwize 2y ago
  > Your "rational software engineer" instead sounds more like someone that's happy to go with substandard solution A grizzled software engineer was telling me about how we were just moments away from AI that would pretty much do almost all the coding for us, leaving software engineers to make only the highest level decisions. My response touched on the low quality of such software and of the tendency of engineers who use AI assistance to develop "skill issues" to the point that they cannot function without the AI tool. "Yes," he told me, "but what I care about is my PAYCHECK. And AI helps me ship much faster." A rational software engineer cares about their paycheck. A rational software company cares about revenues vs. expenses. If you can get a lot of revenue out of very little effort investment by using solution X, you use solution X. Period. End of statement.
tonyedgecombe 2y ago
Native apps don't require an expensive SDK, it's free on all the main desktop platforms. They also don't require a distribution agreement (as long as you aren't putting them in an App Store). It's really not that hard, Fork is a great example of a cross platform app with a rich UI developed by just two people. https://git-fork.com https://git-fork.com
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- nobankai 2y ago
  Wow, it's just like gitg except it costs an arm and a leg instead of being free and open source!
  - hermitcrab 2y ago
    $59.99 = "arm and a leg"?
    - nobankai 2y ago
      For a git interface with multiple open source alternatives? Yeah, this is a tax for people too stupid to figure out commit -am.

zoom6628 2y ago

This. And I live in hope that WASM runtimes can address some or all of this one day.

xp84 2y ago
So then we can ship a binary on top of JavaScript in a browser engine on top of the native platform! ;)
- vram22 2y ago
  Yeah!!! Time for Greenspun's eleventh rule: ;) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule
- hulitu 2y ago
  We really need morw abstraction layers. /s

TeMPOraL 2y ago

> Anything else is a waste of time and money unless management dictates otherwise. Management won't say otherwise because management relies on what software engineers tell them, as it's the job of the engineer to consider quality, reliability and operational efficiency, and advise management on the tradeoffs involved. An engineer can choose to not pick the cheapest possible option. Your "rational software engineer" instead sounds more like someone that's happy to go with substandard solution that's bad for the user and bad for the entire field of software engineering (the more it's used, the more it's normalized), and then hide behind greedy management and penny-pinching beancounters. People sometimes wonder if software wouldn't get better (boy technologically and socially) if software engineering was a licensed profession. Well, we don't deserve to be licensed professionals, because we've abandoned respect and loyalty to our field, and became just "professionals" in the cultural sense of doing cheapest stuff the fastest and dumping all externalities on customers (on third parties).

sigseg1v 2y ago
> People sometimes wonder if software wouldn't get better (boy technologically and socially) if software engineering was a licensed profession. In some countries such as Canada, it is a licensed profession and if you refer yourself as an engineer without holding a PEng you can have legal action taken against you. However, all this has done is make it such that nobody actually holds a software PEng. The only software PEng I know works at the university nearby and I've never met a colleague with designation. Everyone gets a SEng degree but knows no PEng to do a mentorship under so never gets designated. Lack of participation is likely a contributor to being an underdeveloped field. General public confusion from positions in the USA that wildly throw around the title "software engineer" for non-PEng doesn't help.
nobankai 2y ago
Conflating fewer native interfaces with the loss of respect software engineers have is like saying plumbers all went soft at the invention of the plunger. Native apps are a waste of time if you want to sell a successful product. It really just is that simple, I'm sorry all the success stories like Slack don't use the native interface on your OS but that doesn't justify attacking the field as a whole. It's true; this is and will be an OEM issue until the end of software engineering itself. Manufacturers will either align their incentives or get thrown to the wayside by everyone that makes money today.
bitwize 2y ago
> Your "rational software engineer" instead sounds more like someone that's happy to go with substandard solution A grizzled software engineer was telling me about how we were just moments away from AI that would pretty much do almost all the coding for us, leaving software engineers to make only the highest level decisions. My response touched on the low quality of such software and of the tendency of engineers who use AI assistance to develop "skill issues" to the point that they cannot function without the AI tool. "Yes," he told me, "but what I care about is my PAYCHECK. And AI helps me ship much faster." A rational software engineer cares about their paycheck. A rational software company cares about revenues vs. expenses. If you can get a lot of revenue out of very little effort investment by using solution X, you use solution X. Period. End of statement.

tonyedgecombe 2y ago

Native apps don't require an expensive SDK, it's free on all the main desktop platforms. They also don't require a distribution agreement (as long as you aren't putting them in an App Store). It's really not that hard, Fork is a great example of a cross platform app with a rich UI developed by just two people. https://git-fork.com https://git-fork.com

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nobankai 2y ago
Wow, it's just like gitg except it costs an arm and a leg instead of being free and open source!
- hermitcrab 2y ago
  $59.99 = "arm and a leg"?
  - nobankai 2y ago
    For a git interface with multiple open source alternatives? Yeah, this is a tax for people too stupid to figure out commit -am.