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by nice_byte 3732 days ago
It's not just about the speed of executing Javascript code. The UI is rendered with the browser's rendering engine. I've used Atom and it was a disaster, so I no longer trust any desktop applications written using that technology.

I think that if you're going to write a desktop application, you should either use your native platform's APIs or pick a GUI toolkit that can give you a native look and feel. It'll give you a fast UI that looks and behaves consistently with the rest of the user's environment.

2 comments

Please don't write off an entire technology because of one slow early release of an example of it. There should be better ways of utilising native UIs, I'll give you that.
> The UI is rendered with the browser's rendering engine.

Yes, the performance will matter. But as Servo demonstrates there are a lot of speed gains to be made with the right design.

See this talk by Patrick Walton about Servo's WebRender: https://air.mozilla.org/bay-area-rust-meetup-february-2016/#...

And this short demo comparing Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Servo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0hYIRQRiws