The fact of the matter is, ecosystem trumps everything else. For UX development, nothing comes close to javascript. The language may suck, npm is somewhat of a trainwreck, and yet, if you want any sort of esoteric component, you'll find it in JS.
It's got so many tools that it simply isn't uncommon for newer desktop apps to have embedded browser in them as an option.
Want proof?
- Show me a Lazarus native flamegraph.
- Show me a Lazarus graph library that comes close to D3
- Show me a Lazarus date picker :D
Sure, if you are doing something like game design or whatever, then JS is probably a poor fit. However, for pretty much any cooperate application, it is really hard to beat the JS ecosystem. Further, the hard part of distributing those sorts of applications have already been solved. Electron works great if you need a dedicated app. However, you can also just make things a webapp and be done with it.
Yeah, I hate the language. I even hate parts of the ecosystem (is-even... WTF?!?!?!). However, you just have to admit that nothing comes close to the tools and widgets you get for free by adopting js. It was built for UX.
It kinda really isn't. "Great UX" is not something I associate with any web app. They're generally slow and unresponsive, have atrocious accessibility, and don't integrate with OS native UX concepts.
For super simple apps, sure, you might be able to get away with OS native (or frameworks like GTK). And the look and feel will be better.
That's not really the point I was making. The point I was making is that if you want to do anything more complicated then "push this button", you'll quickly find out how limited pretty much every other UX environment is.
Javascript isn't "Great UX" it is "Great UX ecosystem".
Lazarus meaning the Delphi / Pascal IDE? I haven't touched any Pascal code since the first year of highschool over a dousen years ago :). Forgot it even existed.
Yes I hate bloat but I'm starting to hate it less and less each day due to understanding more and more the effort required to build things (in general, not just desktop apps).
I think, unless you have the resources to dedicate yourself to just one OS/toolkit, for which your app performance is an absolute must, it's better to prioritize delivery speed and adoption, using generic tools, with plenty of resources and skills that can be transfered from other areas, like web frontend is in this case. One thing is for sure, I don't have time and resources but I have a pretty fast laptop, so the choice is easy in my case.
Oops, had and typo there, meant to say: reusing the frontend skills... what is weird about that?
Here's another example: GNOME shell uses JavaScript and CSS, and it's pretty straightforward to understand. Was looking at the code of a plugin to hide the workspace switcher popup and tried a few things to instead reduce the animation time to something that does not necessarity stick around over my windows too long to bother me when I want to view the content beneath. Took and few hours but I got it configured decently, and "live reloaded" it to get the effect instantly. Here I reused my JavaScript knowledge to solve it; if it wasn't so easy due to my previous unrelated knowledge I probably wouldn't have invested any time in it.
I don't think they were commenting about the typo, they were simply pointing out that it isn't weird to prefer using things you know.
Personally I can't agree, since in this case using what you know involves shoe-horning a hacked together and mutated beast into a role it wasn't designed for.
It's true what you're saying, JavaScript wasn't designed for this, and chromium is being repurposed for something out of it's scope too. But hopefully it will evolve with time in the right direction, my honest opinion is that it has the potential, mainly due to it's popularity, there's and huge amount of resources and hours people are willing to invest it it.
The fact of the matter is, ecosystem trumps everything else. For UX development, nothing comes close to javascript. The language may suck, npm is somewhat of a trainwreck, and yet, if you want any sort of esoteric component, you'll find it in JS.
It's got so many tools that it simply isn't uncommon for newer desktop apps to have embedded browser in them as an option.
Want proof?
Sure, if you are doing something like game design or whatever, then JS is probably a poor fit. However, for pretty much any cooperate application, it is really hard to beat the JS ecosystem. Further, the hard part of distributing those sorts of applications have already been solved. Electron works great if you need a dedicated app. However, you can also just make things a webapp and be done with it.Yeah, I hate the language. I even hate parts of the ecosystem (is-even... WTF?!?!?!). However, you just have to admit that nothing comes close to the tools and widgets you get for free by adopting js. It was built for UX.