5 ms·

My company started using slack in 2015 and at that time I put in a bug report to slack that their desktop app was using more memory than my IDE on a 1M+LOC C++

by maccard 7mo ago

My company started using slack in 2015 and at that time I put in a bug report to slack that their desktop app was using more memory than my IDE on a 1M+LOC C++ project. I used to stop slack to compile…

hobobaggins 7mo ago
It's always good to not slack when compiling.
- antod 7mo ago
  Just to clarify for other readers, sword fighting while riding office chairs is not slacking.
raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
The bug in Slack is that it uses Electron
- reddalo 7mo ago
  Electron has been a blessing and a horrible thing at the same time.
- ywvcbk 7mo ago
  The overhead added by Electron is hardly that significant at this point, you can still use it to write significantly more efficient apps
  - raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
    The overhead of an entire browser engine isn’t significant compared to a native app?
    - ywvcbk 7mo ago
      No, compared to everything else in those apps. i.e. if they are writing extremely bloated Electron apps why would the native version be less slow and bloated? I mean Electron's overhead is mostly fixed (it's still a lot but its possible to keep memory usage we below 1 GB or even 500 BB even for more complex applications).
      - raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
        A native app that compiles to machine language and uses shared system libraries is by definition going to take less memory and resources than code + web browser +Javascript VM + memory to keep JITd byte code. Write a “Hello World” in C++ that pops up a dialog box compared to writing the same as an Electron app.
        maattdd 7mo ago
        This is not what "by definition" means.
        raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
        A - your code B - a heavy runtime that is greater than 0 C - system libraries By definition A + C < A + B + C
        maattdd 7mo ago
        Again, this is not by definition. This is by deduction.
        ywvcbk 7mo ago
        Yes, exactly, that's what I said. There is significant overhead but is it the only or the main reason why these apps are so slow and inefficient? It's perfectly easy to write slow and inefficient code in C++ as well...
        7mo ago

by maccard 7mo ago

hobobaggins 7mo ago

It's always good to not slack when compiling.

antod 7mo ago
Just to clarify for other readers, sword fighting while riding office chairs is not slacking.

raw_anon_1111 7mo ago

The bug in Slack is that it uses Electron

reddalo 7mo ago
Electron has been a blessing and a horrible thing at the same time.
ywvcbk 7mo ago
The overhead added by Electron is hardly that significant at this point, you can still use it to write significantly more efficient apps
- raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
  The overhead of an entire browser engine isn’t significant compared to a native app?
  - ywvcbk 7mo ago
    No, compared to everything else in those apps. i.e. if they are writing extremely bloated Electron apps why would the native version be less slow and bloated? I mean Electron's overhead is mostly fixed (it's still a lot but its possible to keep memory usage we below 1 GB or even 500 BB even for more complex applications).
    - raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
      A native app that compiles to machine language and uses shared system libraries is by definition going to take less memory and resources than code + web browser +Javascript VM + memory to keep JITd byte code. Write a “Hello World” in C++ that pops up a dialog box compared to writing the same as an Electron app.
      - maattdd 7mo ago
        This is not what "by definition" means.
        raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
        A - your code B - a heavy runtime that is greater than 0 C - system libraries By definition A + C < A + B + C
        maattdd 7mo ago
        Again, this is not by definition. This is by deduction.
      - ywvcbk 7mo ago
        Yes, exactly, that's what I said. There is significant overhead but is it the only or the main reason why these apps are so slow and inefficient? It's perfectly easy to write slow and inefficient code in C++ as well...
        7mo ago