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by royjacobs
3317 days ago
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Cross platform apps are not the future. They've been here for a long time in the form of, say, C++/Qt. The backlash is because, unlike C++, the Electron apps take huge amounts of memory and CPU to perform the simplest tasks. For some developers Electron might be a step forward, but for end-user usability it's definitely a big step back. |
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I'm not going to dispute this, as I've seen it myself; Electron apps can be huge hogs.
So - why not fix them? What is the problem with Electron that causes this? What is the problem with the apps themselves that cause this? Is there an underlying API or something causing all the problems, or is it a death by a thousand cuts kind of issue? Is it the underlying browser instance?
Whatever it is, whether one thing or many, those are the things needing fixed. Don't like them? Then fix them where you can; it's open source after all. Find the problem, fix it, submit a pull request.
I understand (myself included) - "I don't have the time!" - nobody really does, I guess - so maybe we need to make the time? Even if it is just to isolate the issue, that could go a long way towards the solution.
Instead of bitching about this issue, let's help fix the problem. Where Electon seems to shine, above and beyond say, "C++/QT" - is that it has real traction. It's a single ecosystem that leverages stuff a lot of people already know. More people know web technologies than know C++/Qt (ok - citation needed and all that - but I'm pretty certain it's true). It's also (probably?) cheaper to higher them. So companies do that.
While it would be great if our web ecosystem were composed of C++, Qt, etc - it isn't, and it isn't likely to change. Companies want stuff fast, they want stuff cheap. Most people don't care if things are bloated or slow, or what they are written in, as long as they work (this has been the truth forever, of course).
So we might as well get used to it - and try to make it better. In the long run, it will only help us.