6 ms·

The web wasn't made to be used as a desktop app replacement, and it will never be. Quit trying to make it that way, and start using a widget toolkit like you sh

by mid-kid 12y ago

The web wasn't made to be used as a desktop app replacement, and it will never be. Quit trying to make it that way, and start using a widget toolkit like you should. Hell, if you love html/js so much, there's a big chance you won't dislike QML. The web is for sharing content, not for games, text editors, and all that stuff. I see google trying to blur the lines between that, but why is it necessary? Just because people are too lazy to adapt themselves to the platform they're writing for, and allow them to create slow, shitty "web apps"?

nawitus 12y ago
>I see google trying to blur the lines between that, but why is it necessary? So that people don't need to install, maintain or update applications, and can access them everywhere in the world using just a web browser? And because they're also more secure than traditional applications that you need to install on your PC?
- depr 12y ago
  That applies to Google's apps, but not to these Node desktop apps.
- mempko 12y ago
  Having apps magically always update without user consent is developer friendly, but not user friendly. Have you ever used a web app that changed in ways you didn't like?
  - nawitus 12y ago
    I'd say "not always user friendly". There are of course drawbacks with web apps.
depr 12y ago
Also, if you're making a desktop app you don't have to use HTML/JS, why on earth would you use those if you don't absolutely have to?
- rdtsc 12y ago
  Regardless of my personal view of JS desktop apps the reasoning usually follows out of a combination of these: * Web browsers already have a way of creating widgets rendering them, changing their skins * There are many javascript libraries and frameworks, so can use those for connecting backends, processing events, etc. * With a bit of luck you can run the same code as an actual web page. * Desktop app is an after-thought today because web service/web page came first. The world of software applications with a GUI on top started with Desktop apps that were then adapted for the web. Today perhaps the opposite is true.
- dnissley 12y ago
  What is the alternative to building a cross-platform desktop app that isn't tied to the browser security model? Build a different app for every platform?
  - api 12y ago
    Qt and Java.
    - shadowfox 12y ago
      Or WX widgets.
  - rhengles 12y ago
    When I set out, a few years ago, to build a gui app in JS in Windows (but cross-platform), I found RingoJS which is a wrapper around Java. My entire app could be in a single .js file, with access to all Java libs. For the widget library, I chose SWT. I built a few very simple apps, despite having never programmed in Java before. Later, I found how to run my .js file directly with RhinoJS and SWT from the command line. I'm pretty confident that this is the simplest way to build desktop apps in JS in Windows :)
  - dkersten 12y ago
    Qt
- 12y ago
bpizzi 12y ago
> The web is for sharing content, not for games, text editors, and all that stuff. I see google trying to blur the lines between that, but why is it necessary? Because innovation happens when you start thinking out of the box?
- chcokr 12y ago
  This. Plus, sure, WWW was probably meant for sharing content, but HTML/JS is a front-end standard not necessarily tied with WWW.
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  Innovation can happen when you start thinking out of the box. That doesn't mean it does happen. I don't find much about "webdev" to be terribly innovative. In many ways it is a large step backwards or sideways.
  - organsnyder 12y ago
    I agree that from a technology standpoint, the web development field is absolutely atrocious—at all levels. On the server side, broken languages control vast swaths of marketshare, and the client side has plenty of its own issues. From the user's perspective, however, there's been a ton of innovation, and they (usually) don't know/care that most applications are built on houses of cards.
    - mattkrea 12y ago
      Out of curiosity what broken languages in particular are you referring to? I'm also somewhat curious at to what language(s) you use.
      - organsnyder 12y ago
        I really should have made that singular—I was referring to PHP. Historically, my language of choice for the server-side has been Java (I interned at an IBM lab that was involved in the creation of Eclipse, so I used it a lot at the start of my career). More recently, I've been dabbling in Ruby, and I'd also like to give Scala and Go a try.
jekrb 12y ago
|slow, shitty "web apps" Ah yes, nothing is better than waiting 5 minutes for the native Facebook iPhone app to boot up. But seriously, I've mostly switched from facebook to ello just because ello as a web app is faster than facebook as a mobile app. Not all web apps are slow and not all native apps are fast. It's up to the developers to handle that, not the platform. I see a lot of benefits of building and using web apps over native ones. As a developer I can really focus on using the browser as my runtime. Meaning my app will, for the most part, run on most devices. It's also easier to maintain. If I need push a patch or update, I just edit some javascript. As a user, I know that when I switch from device to device I won't need to go through an install process. All I need is a url. Why can't the web be for games or text editors? Some of the most useful text editors I've used are on the web. What about WebRTC? Should we still all be using the Skype desktop app instead? I would probably say that it's lazier not to make your app work well on the web.
- gagege 12y ago
  "5 minutes"? Even if you had said "10 seconds", there's something wrong with your phone. Facebook on my Moto G starts up in under 2 seconds. Same with most other apps. Besides, I'd rather have an app that takes a little longer to start up, but performs well, than an app that first requires starting a web browser and then on top of that has an interface that runs like a snail.
  - organsnyder 12y ago
    Facebook sometimes takes at least 10 seconds to launch on my Nexus 5. While it's loading, all I see is a white screen. This happened both before and after upgrading to Lollipop. I'm running stock unrooted Android, and I don't notice issues with any other apps.
  - jekrb 12y ago
    iPhone 4? Maybe there is something wrong with my phone, but my friends experience the same problem, so I'm assuming it's the app/platform combination. It also frequently crashes on start up. Also, even if it is the phone, that's still an issue with native apps. The fb web app loads faster (still not great, but faster) than the iOS app boots up.
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
The hype around HTML/JS as a substitute or replacement for native development has little to do with developer laziness and more to do with commoditizing software development labor. Native is hard relative to (the nearly thoughtless) slapping together of JS and CSS frameworks to "build" an "app." It requires paying people more and taking more time to develop.
- pjmlp 12y ago
  I have lots of UI toolkits under my belt since the mid-80's, been doing web development on and off since the .com days. When compared with RAD tooling like Delphi or XAML, HTML/CSS/JS is anything but easy.
  - gagege 12y ago
    Even WinForms is a breeze compared to all the quirks of the web.
    - organsnyder 12y ago
      Web becomes a lot easier when you limit your target platforms. If you're shipping a thin browser-based shell around a web app and you know that you need to target Android 2.0+, iOS 6+, and Windows Phone 7, then you already know that you can eliminate many rendering engines (Firefox, Opera) as well as some of the old browser versions (IE < 10) that are usually the most problematic.
      - pjmlp 12y ago
        Try to explain to customers holding payments, why the web page looks different across multiple handsets using the same browser.
- jekrb 12y ago
  Which is also a problem for web. Compared to writing native apps you can get away with much more. You can be asked to help in projects where css like this was already written: #updates > span > table > tbody > tr > td > span People who have never heard of specificity or modularity start writing code that will run on thousands of browsers, and in turn those users experience a slower web. The other side of that mess is when developers with more experience thoroughly plan out the architecture of the web app, to ensure it operates on a performance budget and the user experience stays positive. Just as native apps, this also requires paying people more and taking more time to develop.
moron4hire 12y ago
>> Quit trying to make it that way no.
- bootstrapnyc 12y ago
  +1

by mid-kid 12y ago

nawitus 12y ago

>I see google trying to blur the lines between that, but why is it necessary? So that people don't need to install, maintain or update applications, and can access them everywhere in the world using just a web browser? And because they're also more secure than traditional applications that you need to install on your PC?

depr 12y ago
That applies to Google's apps, but not to these Node desktop apps.
mempko 12y ago
Having apps magically always update without user consent is developer friendly, but not user friendly. Have you ever used a web app that changed in ways you didn't like?
- nawitus 12y ago
  I'd say "not always user friendly". There are of course drawbacks with web apps.

depr 12y ago

Also, if you're making a desktop app you don't have to use HTML/JS, why on earth would you use those if you don't absolutely have to?

rdtsc 12y ago
Regardless of my personal view of JS desktop apps the reasoning usually follows out of a combination of these: * Web browsers already have a way of creating widgets rendering them, changing their skins * There are many javascript libraries and frameworks, so can use those for connecting backends, processing events, etc. * With a bit of luck you can run the same code as an actual web page. * Desktop app is an after-thought today because web service/web page came first. The world of software applications with a GUI on top started with Desktop apps that were then adapted for the web. Today perhaps the opposite is true.
dnissley 12y ago
What is the alternative to building a cross-platform desktop app that isn't tied to the browser security model? Build a different app for every platform?
- api 12y ago
  Qt and Java.
  - shadowfox 12y ago
    Or WX widgets.
- rhengles 12y ago
  When I set out, a few years ago, to build a gui app in JS in Windows (but cross-platform), I found RingoJS which is a wrapper around Java. My entire app could be in a single .js file, with access to all Java libs. For the widget library, I chose SWT. I built a few very simple apps, despite having never programmed in Java before. Later, I found how to run my .js file directly with RhinoJS and SWT from the command line. I'm pretty confident that this is the simplest way to build desktop apps in JS in Windows :)
- dkersten 12y ago
  Qt
12y ago

bpizzi 12y ago

> The web is for sharing content, not for games, text editors, and all that stuff. I see google trying to blur the lines between that, but why is it necessary? Because innovation happens when you start thinking out of the box?

chcokr 12y ago
This. Plus, sure, WWW was probably meant for sharing content, but HTML/JS is a front-end standard not necessarily tied with WWW.
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
Innovation can happen when you start thinking out of the box. That doesn't mean it does happen. I don't find much about "webdev" to be terribly innovative. In many ways it is a large step backwards or sideways.
- organsnyder 12y ago
  I agree that from a technology standpoint, the web development field is absolutely atrocious—at all levels. On the server side, broken languages control vast swaths of marketshare, and the client side has plenty of its own issues. From the user's perspective, however, there's been a ton of innovation, and they (usually) don't know/care that most applications are built on houses of cards.
  - mattkrea 12y ago
    Out of curiosity what broken languages in particular are you referring to? I'm also somewhat curious at to what language(s) you use.
    - organsnyder 12y ago
      I really should have made that singular—I was referring to PHP. Historically, my language of choice for the server-side has been Java (I interned at an IBM lab that was involved in the creation of Eclipse, so I used it a lot at the start of my career). More recently, I've been dabbling in Ruby, and I'd also like to give Scala and Go a try.

jekrb 12y ago

|slow, shitty "web apps" Ah yes, nothing is better than waiting 5 minutes for the native Facebook iPhone app to boot up. But seriously, I've mostly switched from facebook to ello just because ello as a web app is faster than facebook as a mobile app. Not all web apps are slow and not all native apps are fast. It's up to the developers to handle that, not the platform. I see a lot of benefits of building and using web apps over native ones. As a developer I can really focus on using the browser as my runtime. Meaning my app will, for the most part, run on most devices. It's also easier to maintain. If I need push a patch or update, I just edit some javascript. As a user, I know that when I switch from device to device I won't need to go through an install process. All I need is a url. Why can't the web be for games or text editors? Some of the most useful text editors I've used are on the web. What about WebRTC? Should we still all be using the Skype desktop app instead? I would probably say that it's lazier not to make your app work well on the web.

gagege 12y ago
"5 minutes"? Even if you had said "10 seconds", there's something wrong with your phone. Facebook on my Moto G starts up in under 2 seconds. Same with most other apps. Besides, I'd rather have an app that takes a little longer to start up, but performs well, than an app that first requires starting a web browser and then on top of that has an interface that runs like a snail.
- organsnyder 12y ago
  Facebook sometimes takes at least 10 seconds to launch on my Nexus 5. While it's loading, all I see is a white screen. This happened both before and after upgrading to Lollipop. I'm running stock unrooted Android, and I don't notice issues with any other apps.
- jekrb 12y ago
  iPhone 4? Maybe there is something wrong with my phone, but my friends experience the same problem, so I'm assuming it's the app/platform combination. It also frequently crashes on start up. Also, even if it is the phone, that's still an issue with native apps. The fb web app loads faster (still not great, but faster) than the iOS app boots up.

Iftheshoefits 12y ago

The hype around HTML/JS as a substitute or replacement for native development has little to do with developer laziness and more to do with commoditizing software development labor. Native is hard relative to (the nearly thoughtless) slapping together of JS and CSS frameworks to "build" an "app." It requires paying people more and taking more time to develop.

pjmlp 12y ago
I have lots of UI toolkits under my belt since the mid-80's, been doing web development on and off since the .com days. When compared with RAD tooling like Delphi or XAML, HTML/CSS/JS is anything but easy.
- gagege 12y ago
  Even WinForms is a breeze compared to all the quirks of the web.
  - organsnyder 12y ago
    Web becomes a lot easier when you limit your target platforms. If you're shipping a thin browser-based shell around a web app and you know that you need to target Android 2.0+, iOS 6+, and Windows Phone 7, then you already know that you can eliminate many rendering engines (Firefox, Opera) as well as some of the old browser versions (IE < 10) that are usually the most problematic.
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      Try to explain to customers holding payments, why the web page looks different across multiple handsets using the same browser.
jekrb 12y ago
Which is also a problem for web. Compared to writing native apps you can get away with much more. You can be asked to help in projects where css like this was already written: #updates > span > table > tbody > tr > td > span People who have never heard of specificity or modularity start writing code that will run on thousands of browsers, and in turn those users experience a slower web. The other side of that mess is when developers with more experience thoroughly plan out the architecture of the web app, to ensure it operates on a performance budget and the user experience stays positive. Just as native apps, this also requires paying people more and taking more time to develop.

moron4hire 12y ago

>> Quit trying to make it that way no.

bootstrapnyc 12y ago
+1