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by mdhughes 2728 days ago
Cross-platform is the key problem.

If I want to write a Mac-only app, I can do that in Objective-C/Cocoa, and be quite happy.

For Linux, native means fighting with primitive C and X11 or Gtk, etc., which I can do but I loathe it.

For Windows, I have no idea, C# maybe? I'd rather eat broken glass than install Windows and find[ed.] out.

So if I'm doing cross-platform, my current working choices are Electron, Java, FreePascal/Lazarus, or Scheme.

Electron's easy to build all three platforms on, performance is OK despite the bloated example of Slack.

Java would need to bundle the JRE everywhere, and I've been largely Java-clean for 10 years.

Lazarus is semi-broken on Mac currently, only 32-bit like stone age tools, Cocoa port is unfinished. Maybe they'll get their shit together someday, I like it when it works.

Scheme native binaries are hard and experimental, but getting better.

Using a WKWebView on Mac, then writing a completely different wrapper on Linux & Windows, is unacceptable for my uses.

So my actual shipping code is Electron.