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Mourning the lost art of native app is HN's ritual routine. In the meanwhile VSCode has become the most used editor by developers and it's not even close. I th

Mourning the lost art of native app is HN's ritual routine. In the meanwhile VSCode has become the most used editor by developers and it's not even close. I think a lot of hatred toward web apps actually comes from the hatred toward cloud-first design. Notion feels sluggish compared to Obsidian, but is it really due to electron? Or the fact that one is cloud-first while the other is local-first? Edit: well I just looked it up and it seems that Obsidian is electron-based too.

ChadNauseam 8mo ago
Yeah. You cannot achieve native performance with web apps, but most tasks are simple enough that wasm is plenty fast. If you generate a frame in 7ms or 1ms, the user can't tell the difference. I think cloud-first design is natural because webapps have nowhere good to store state. On Safari, which is the only browser that matters for many web developers, everything can be deleted at any time. So if you don't want to have a horrible user experience, you have to force your users to make an account and sync their stuff to the cloud. Then, the most natural thing to do is to just have the user's frontend update when the backend updates (think old-school fully-SSR'd apps). You can do much better than that with optimistic updates but it adds a lot of complexity. The gold standard is to go fully local-first, but to really do that right requires CRDTs in most cases, which are their own rabbit hole. (That's the approach I take in my apps because i'm a perfectionist, but I get why most people wouldn't think it's worth it) With the files API, apps could actually replicate the microsoft word experience of drafting a file and saving it to your desktop and praying that your hard drive doesn't fail, but despite offering great benefits in terms of self-custody of data it was never a great user experience for most people.
- dragonwriter 8mo ago
  > With the files API, apps could actually replicate the microsoft word experience of drafting a file and saving it to your desktop and praying that your hard drive doesn't fail, Even withou the files API, with local storage, web apps can (and some—mostly extremely casual games that are free—do!) duplicate that experience with the extra risk of your data being lost because your disk became too full or some other event causing the local storage to be cleared.
  - LoganDark 8mo ago
    I once ran out of disk space while Chrome was running and, despite me clearing the space again shortly after, the damage was already done and Chrome had already decided to wipe all my local storage and cookies. It didn't keep it in memory to save again once there was space, it just deleted it all permanently.
- wiseowise 8mo ago
  > If you generate a frame in 7ms or 1ms, the user can't tell the difference. But muh 0.00001W of energy!
Swizec 8mo ago
> In the meanwhile VSCode has become the most used editor by developers and it's not even close Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t VSCode an Electron app? ie a webapp shipped together with a stripped down browser I know that GitHub Codespaces open as a full VSCode editor in my browser so I always assumed it was the same code.
- wiseowise 8mo ago
  I’ll never understand “stripped down browser” like it’s some curse. Any managed language brings its own runtime. C# brings CLR runtime, Java brings JVM, Go brings its own runtime.
  - Swizec 8mo ago
    I’m not saying it’s a curse, I’m saying it’s a webapp. Because the person I’m replying to used it as an example of something you can only build as a native app.
arthurofbabylon 8mo ago
Both Notion and Obsidian are sluggish compared to Minimal.
- wiseowise 8mo ago
  I’ve also never heard about minimal, while I’ve heard about Notion and Obsidian.
- MDCore 8mo ago
  I tried a web search for "Minimal text editor" and Minimal vs Obsidian" and couldn't find any results that seemed to be an obsidian or notion equivalent.
wolvesechoes 8mo ago
> Mourning the lost art of native app is HN's ritual routine. In the meanwhile VSCode has become the most used editor by developers and it's not even close. McDonald's is probably most popular... "food serving place" in the world.

ChadNauseam 8mo ago

Yeah. You cannot achieve native performance with web apps, but most tasks are simple enough that wasm is plenty fast. If you generate a frame in 7ms or 1ms, the user can't tell the difference. I think cloud-first design is natural because webapps have nowhere good to store state. On Safari, which is the only browser that matters for many web developers, everything can be deleted at any time. So if you don't want to have a horrible user experience, you have to force your users to make an account and sync their stuff to the cloud. Then, the most natural thing to do is to just have the user's frontend update when the backend updates (think old-school fully-SSR'd apps). You can do much better than that with optimistic updates but it adds a lot of complexity. The gold standard is to go fully local-first, but to really do that right requires CRDTs in most cases, which are their own rabbit hole. (That's the approach I take in my apps because i'm a perfectionist, but I get why most people wouldn't think it's worth it) With the files API, apps could actually replicate the microsoft word experience of drafting a file and saving it to your desktop and praying that your hard drive doesn't fail, but despite offering great benefits in terms of self-custody of data it was never a great user experience for most people.

dragonwriter 8mo ago
> With the files API, apps could actually replicate the microsoft word experience of drafting a file and saving it to your desktop and praying that your hard drive doesn't fail, Even withou the files API, with local storage, web apps can (and some—mostly extremely casual games that are free—do!) duplicate that experience with the extra risk of your data being lost because your disk became too full or some other event causing the local storage to be cleared.
- LoganDark 8mo ago
  I once ran out of disk space while Chrome was running and, despite me clearing the space again shortly after, the damage was already done and Chrome had already decided to wipe all my local storage and cookies. It didn't keep it in memory to save again once there was space, it just deleted it all permanently.
wiseowise 8mo ago
> If you generate a frame in 7ms or 1ms, the user can't tell the difference. But muh 0.00001W of energy!

Swizec 8mo ago

> In the meanwhile VSCode has become the most used editor by developers and it's not even close Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t VSCode an Electron app? ie a webapp shipped together with a stripped down browser I know that GitHub Codespaces open as a full VSCode editor in my browser so I always assumed it was the same code.

wiseowise 8mo ago
I’ll never understand “stripped down browser” like it’s some curse. Any managed language brings its own runtime. C# brings CLR runtime, Java brings JVM, Go brings its own runtime.
- Swizec 8mo ago
  I’m not saying it’s a curse, I’m saying it’s a webapp. Because the person I’m replying to used it as an example of something you can only build as a native app.

arthurofbabylon 8mo ago

Both Notion and Obsidian are sluggish compared to Minimal.

wiseowise 8mo ago
I’ve also never heard about minimal, while I’ve heard about Notion and Obsidian.
MDCore 8mo ago
I tried a web search for "Minimal text editor" and Minimal vs Obsidian" and couldn't find any results that seemed to be an obsidian or notion equivalent.

wolvesechoes 8mo ago

> Mourning the lost art of native app is HN's ritual routine. In the meanwhile VSCode has become the most used editor by developers and it's not even close. McDonald's is probably most popular... "food serving place" in the world.