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by azangru 2183 days ago
> used less resources and actually had more features

I remember the time when there was a native client for Skype on Linux. It probably used less resources, yes, but it was horribly lacking in features compared to Windows or MacOS native clients. Now that everything is javascript, Skype on Linux works great, apart from being a godawful resource hog. I found it really pleasant to use over the last several years. Video calls work great, screen sharing works great, even conference calls work, which they never before did on Linux. Couldn't be happier with the changes.
1 comments
0xDEEPFAC 2183 days ago
So why did they force everyone else to use the Javascript version instead of only Linux? Why didn't they just improve the Linux version.

I use Skype everyday for work and my quality of life is noticeably different in a bad way :(

Plus, my poor laptop is now forced to run Skype, Zoom, Slack, Google Docs, and Discord. Its turned into a cooktop...

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azangru 2183 days ago
> Why didn't they just improve the Linux version.

You know, write once, run everywhere. It's programmer's dream :-)

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0xDEEPFAC 2183 days ago
Write once, run poorly everywhere. It's a lazy programmer's dream ; )

https://medium.com/commitlog/electron-is-cancer-b066108e6c32

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deeter72 2183 days ago
It really has to be laziness since the Qt framework is widely supported on Linux.
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nimrody 2183 days ago
The funny thing here is that this is no small startup with limited resources.

Microsoft can have dedicated teams for each platform (perhaps Linux is not as important but certainly for Windows, macOS, android and iOS)

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holidaygoose 2183 days ago
It might also be an issue with motivation. Would you want to work on something that's basically a clone, so there's no creativity but purely porting + solving annoying platform-related bugs? You'd probably tolerate it for a bit, but then it's just playing catch up all the time. It seems like a recipe for employees trying to switch away to another team or company.
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0xDEEPFAC 2183 days ago
They did it for control and convenience at the expense of literate computer users.

The Windows 10 UI is written in TypeScript, Edge is chrome, Chrome is chrome, Safari is chrome - it makes hiring and training easy when you can just make every API a grey gelatinous chunk of ECMA script with hamburger menus. It also means the "app" is always sandboxed unable to do powerful things like universal push-to-talk.

The color and joy of using programs has been flattened out in the name of consistency.

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holidaygoose 2182 days ago
Oh yeah but I was talking about motivating the developers. I think it might be challenging to hire people who just work on porting.
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