[jimsmart]

Let's say I want to build a cross-platform app. I could use Electron (it's somewhat of a known quantity), or I could start doing some research into what else is available, and then evaluate the various offerings - not only to ensure they do what I need, but to also ensure that they use less power/resources than Electron. The effort here is (at least some kind of) unavoidable up-front cost/time.

To switch existing code to use some particular UTF-8 decoding library should be as simple as changing some imports, and perhaps some other (search/replace) code tweaks or implementing a quick shim/adapter. If it doesn't work out, rollback or abandon the branch. On most codebases, even larger ones, this whole process is probably an easier thing to do, requiring less effort than finding a decent (and more power efficient) alternative to Electron — seems to be the GP's gist. And personally I'd agree.

[FpUser]

"Let's say I want to build a cross-platform app. I could use Electron (it's somewhat of a known quantity), or I could start doing some research into what else is available, and then evaluate the various offerings - not only to ensure they do what I need, but to also ensure that they use less power/resources than Electron. The effort here is (at least some kind of) unavoidable up-front cost/time."

Yup that's right. Any sign of inconvenience and efficiency be damned. Why do we even bother trying to fix environment. This cost money and inconveniences so many people.

Also it depends on your background. I have no problem doing without Electron. I would have to apply your exact logic to even look at it.

[dwild]

You are clearly someone seeing in black and white. There's shade of grays too, you know?

> Any sign of inconvenience and efficiency be damned.

Nope, not any signs... just that if you can build more with less time, in exchange of a bit of CPU efficiency, it's not so bad.

> Why do we even bother trying to fix environment.

For the future. You see, my program using a bit more RAM or CPU won't change much. Not eating that meat, that will change quite a bit, thus that's one of the things I do.

A software can allow people to be many orders in magnitudes more efficient, if I can build more of them, it allows even more people to be a few orders of magnitude more efficient. The power usage afterward, fit in the error margin quite well.