That's a very good point. Thank you for the comment! I'll mention it to my team and have that issue fixed. :) We are also currently beta testing a cross-platform IDE, so please stay tuned!
Can you give some info about the cross platform version - specifically the UI toolkit it uses? i.e. it is Java, QT, Electron, platform-specific UI with a C/C++ core, etc?
I'd be delighted to! We're using Electron, React and TypeScript. You can check out our development team's blog here for more information:
- Cross-Platform Application Design with Electron, React, and gRPC (https://medium.com/p/c13a429b5346/)
- Why Did We Choose React and TypeScript for QueryPie? (https://medium.com/p/56c9b2ab352)
This is Hacker News so you will get lots of people chiming in to remind you they won’t use your project because it’s Electron. The people like me usually don’t say anything but I know how disheartening it can be to only receive negativity so I’m going to chime in.
I’m currently running Slack and Discord and am happy with both desktop applications. I would absolute consider using any future electron based applications in the future.
> Meanwhile customers happily used the apps without caring about what tech was used
People didn't care what tech was used and still do not care, but they do care if the programs are slow and resource hogs.
Note that thanks to all those Java apps at the past, Java still to this day has a very negative image about being slow regardless of how true that is (especially among people who do not know enough to judge its performance).
> If you app solves a real problem, people will use it regardless of the tech you use.
That doesn't mean people will like using it.
Also you do not see many desktop apps being made in Java nowadays. Or 10 years ago, for that matter.
It is easy to assume that from the vantage point of being a developer and being able to notice an app that is native vs. something like electron. But for most users and even a lot of developers, they won't notice as long as the app functions.
I work on a team that encompasses both Tech and Business Associates and all the non-tech people love slack, and have no complaints about the app itself. Hackernews loves to get on its high horse and complain about electron and so many other trends, but as us developers love to forget, we are rarely the target audience for the apps in which we create.
What Java apps became popular, other than Minecraft? The only things that got used were tools from companies like Cisco and IBM which everyone detested using.
How about JetBrains’s entire suite of IDEs? They are Java (well, now probably mostly Kotlin, but still JVM) based and cross-platform and as a user of those and previously Vi/Emacs for three decades I can say totally belong in my toolkit.
Would you prefer no one said anything, and the OP wasn't aware that their technical choices will affect whether potential customers use their app?
This isn't like "I don't like .Net so I'm not going to use any web app or service that runs on the Microsoft stack". The technology choices they make affect how it runs on each individual user's computer, and that will affect some people's decision to use (or not) the app.
It's not that you're wrong to point out the shortcomings of Electron, but it's boring and it leads to endlessly repetetive threads that derail what could have been interesting conversations.
Perhaps it's better to assume that people who are working with Electron understand its limitations and have made an informed decision to use it because it suits their requirements.
To be fair - I didn't go on a long rant about it, I didn't really say anything about it originally. I asked what it was (as they mentioned they'd be going cross platform), and as they were kind enough to answer, I assumed they'd appreciate a response.
The only reason I went further is because someone specifically asked.
I agree it can get repetitive, but I also think it's naive to assume the developers using it know all its limitations.
I might be a pessimist, but i believe it is way more likely that people who are working with Electron are doing it on powerful workstations, mostly worked with the web stack and want to reuse their knowledge and many of them have no idea (or forgot) about the performance differences between an Electron application and a native application on a mid-range (let alone low end) computer.
With that in mind, even if nothing will change for those who already have invested their time in Electron, this repetition might at least steer some who are at the edge towards better solutions than Electron.
Most people do not care about how something was made, but they do care if their computer feels sluggish, their hard disk fills up and - if they are using laptops - their battery drains fast.