[purple-again]

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.

[stevoski]

10 or 15 years ago, people releasing desktop apps built on Java endured the same negativity.

Meanwhile customers happily used the apps without caring about what tech was used because the apps solved problems for them.

Likewise these days with Electron. If you app solves a real problem, people will use it regardless of the tech you use.

[Crinus]

> 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.

[parzivalm]

> That doesn't mean people will like using it.

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.

[Crinus]

People may say they love using Slack, but they certainly wont like their computers being slower and/or their laptop's batteries draining. And they wont blame Slack or any other Electron application for that, largely because they do not know why that happens! They'll blame their computer, perhaps Apple/Microsoft, their luck or whatever, but they do not have enough knowledge to judge Slack or any other misbehaving application unless the application makes it crystal clear that it is the reason.

It is up to the techies and developers to point out why that happens as they are the ones who have the necessary knowledge to figure out what is wrong. You cannot rely on users to figure out that stuff.

[bluedino]

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.

People still complain about Java.

[SomeHacker44]

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.

[etatoby]

I begrudgingly use IDEA because for some languages I cannot get nearly the same level of productivity with better tools, such as Vim or Sublime. But that doesn't mean I like using the damned thing. As soon as I can ditch it, I will and I do. Same goes for all the Electron rubbish.

Every time I have to wait a few seconds after clicking on something trivial, like the File top-level menu, I remind myself of how much my Intel i7 can do in 1 second, and my disdain for Java and Electron apps only increases.

I don't know if Windows or Mac OS have a battery usage chart by app, like Android does, with warnings for badly written software. If they don't, they should add it. Maybe that would clue more people in.

[projektfu]

"I begrudgingly use IDEA because for some languages I cannot get nearly the same level of productivity with better tools" Hmm. That's an oddly worded complaint.

[mamon]

I wonder what's the metric used to call those other tools better, if not productivity?

[SomeHacker44]

I have used VI (and successors) since 1988, and Emacs since 1990, and have tried many other IDEs through the years (Eclipse, NetBeans, Sublime, VS Code, Atom, and tons of others). My go-to are the IDEs from JetBrains now, except for Common Lisp and Haskell (Emacs, although Haskell may be changing). Clojure, Java, Scala, Python, Ruby, Go, SQL, JavaScript, C#, F#, and many others, are all supported in one IDE (IDEA) or in multiple (my personal preference).

I personally have no performance problems with JetBrains IDEs, but maybe I have tuned them up after years of using them... (Or tuned down my expectations? Can't really say offhand.)

[bluedino]

Totally forgot about that one. Eclipse scarred me for life on Java-based IDE's

[CaptainHiggins]

I think VS Code is the gold standard for Electron.

Slack, not so much. On my work laptop, it uses 800mb over 5 processes, and is easily 5x slower to paste a screenshot into than Teams.

[thejohnconway]

I wish VS Code wasn’t Electron. It’s noticeably laggier that native editors, and its performance under load is a lot worse.

[pknopf]

The question is, could any of the native editors keep the pace of new features/improvements?

[TeMPOraL]

Sure, why not? It's not like most of the features are strongly tied to VS Code being a browser app. Implemented against a different platform they'd probably look different. Maybe a bit less shiny, but likely a bit more performant.

[pknopf]

> Sure, why not?

I was being facetious.

I'm not a fan of electron either, but when it comes to just HTML/CSS/JS, nothing beats it in developer productivity. The business logic is (of course) a sep discussion.

By the way, I have professional experience in HTML/JS/CSS/WPF/WinForms/Qt/Android/UIKit.

[jjeaff]

I can detect no lag in my vscode. I do have a very powerful desktop.

[stephenr]

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.

[Veen]

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.

[stephenr]

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.

[Crinus]

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.

[Veen]

I might be even more pessemistic than you. The people who want to use Electron are, as you point out, mostly web developers who want to try their hand at a desktop app. I don't think any number of "Electron sucks" warnings are going to cause those people to abandon JavaScript and learn Objective-C or Swift or C#.

[maaaats]

Most people care about the features, there's a really small amount of people for which the tech stack matters. Negligible, I'd guess.

So no, you're not doing anyone any favours here, just spreading negativity.

[Crinus]

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.

[ausjke]

same here,for most cross platform desktop gui I too consider electron is the best choice,though may not be the perfect one.