[sime2009]

> Electron is only the best way to do something when someone knows only javascript and web dev but doesn't want to learn a new language.

What toolkit or library would you propose instead? Seriously, what are these great alternatives? Doesn't necessarily have to support JS.

[nv-vn]

There's a ton of really popular, well-supported options

* GTK

* Qt

* WPF for Windows

* JavaFX

* Tk

* LibUI

I'm rooting for https://github.com/revery-ui/revery/ right now too, but it's still early in development

[sime2009]

> GTK

GTK hasn't been well maintained or developed for ages and has always had poor docs. I wouldn't feel confident trying it on any platform which isn't its home (i.e. Linux).

> Qt

Qt is probably the best option in the list but it's language support is poor, only C++ and Python are practical. It is a big fully featured and mature library, but developing with QML is a poor experience compared to the tooling available on Chrome/Electron. Packaging and distributing Python and/or C++ Qt apps is a huge PITA too.

> WPF for Windows

not cross platform

> JavaFX

JavaFX looked interesting but just didn't seem to take off and develop a reasonable ecosystem around it. Certainly nothing that could rival the web ecosystem. I do love the language support that the JVM delivers. Regarding deployment size it isn't likely to be much better than Electron as most apps have to ship the whole JVM anyway. The stench of Oracle does taint it these days too.

> Tk

be serious

> LibUI

This isn't mature yet and it looks like another optimistic adventure in "write once, debug everywhere" like WxWidgets.

None of the options here can compete with Electron in terms of ecosystem or developer experience (often Chrome's dev tools). Nor are they built on open standards. Also JS is up there with the JVM and .Net platform in terms of languages which target and can run on it.

[munchbunny]

As someone who used to develop with some of those options, I'm frankly glad that I can use HTML/CSS and Electron + React. It's much easier on the developer, even if it's less performant for the end user.

[doodpants]

That's exactly the problem: the developer prioritizing their own convenience over the end user experience.

[munchbunny]

I can also just not write the software.

It's not like I don't get the pain of slow tooling. I cut my teeth on C++. However, it's not a laziness issue, it's trading performance in one place for functionality in another. Case in point, at the time I chose C++ because I was trying to do game development in the pre-unity days. These days I'd choose Unity in a heartbeat because it's fast enough and saves me a lot of busywork. I could write more performant code from scratch, but it's really not worth the extra months spent wrangling polygons because the game never gets made.

[nv-vn]

Which options in particular? I'm guessing Gtk or Tk might be pretty annoying to work with.

[faissaloo]

Gtk is mostly annoying to work with because the documentation is poor.

[Pfhreak]

How many of those run on the web as a platform? (A cursory search suggests 'not many' or 'not without some effort'?)

There are some components I'd ideally like to avoid rewriting for my web and desktop applications. (E.g. why should I have to write render code for my friends list component more than once?)

[nv-vn]

I'm sure Revery does, don't know about the others.