[stef-13013]

You're right, Electron app. are ok... If there is only one in RAM !

On my 8 GB computer, I used to run in the same time :

- VsCode (700 MB)

- Teams (600 MB),

- PostMan (350 MB !? WTF)

- WhatsApp (consumes almost 600 MB after 1 hour !)

I had to switch to the web version for the last 3...

In contrast, running 25 torrents with qBitTorrent: ~25 mb.

[scaladev]

Yeah, the Silly Valley bubble doesn't realize how the rest of the world lives. In my third world country they're still selling _new_ (straight from the factory, this year's models) laptops with 4 GBs of RAM. Most models still come with 8 GBs of RAM (and most of them cost above of what I make in a month, and I pull a relatively decent paycheck). You get the idea.

[jcelerier]

> In my third world country they're still selling _new_ (straight from the factory, this year's models) laptops with 4 GBs of RAM

I live in France and there are 4GB here too: https://www.ldlc.com/informatique/ordinateur-portable/pc-por...

hell, in one of the biggest online retailers, the second biggest category is 2 gigabytes (number in parentheses is the number of laptop models available with that ram amount)

https://imgur.com/a/LL8H7aP

[lambda_obrien]

If I run more than two "browsers" my laptop slows to a crawl (I am in the USA, but I don't have the money for fancy stuff), so I have to decide to run Firefox (main browser), Chromium (test browser), VSCODE (IDE "browser"), or one of the other 50 "browsers" I have installed. Usually I have to run all of the above 3 when working, so I end up using OS tools to "freeze" the process of whichever "browser" I am not using at the time, but it causes problems.

I would be super happy if I could run several similar engines under one main process, I don't care as much about security concerns when I'm developing my own software, and would not mind some "intraprocess security holes" if I could reduce my memory footprint like that and then turn it off when I want the "security holes" to be closed again.

[thebigspacefuck]

It’s not as bad these days with SSDs

[stjohnswarts]

Actually it is, SSD does help a little bit with swapping for disk I/O if RAM gets full but in general keeping the app in RAM is much much faster than even SSD. Electron absolutely chews up RAM like crazy compared to just about every c++ based GUI I've ever used. I just thought I'd let you know that.

[stef-13013]

Yes, and stuff like pyside2 are pretty cool too (for people who don't like C++)

[whereistimbo]

You could run WhatsApp on a browser instead of having another seperate chromium instance.

[stef-13013]

Yes, that's what I've done... (and not only it)

It is just to illustrate the fact that Electron, after all, might be a real problem for native app.

[int_19h]

Whether one at a time is okay still depends on the app...

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/22900

[Iwan-Zotow]

Hate to tell you, but 16Gb is a pretty much minimum now.

Running with 32 and looking for 64Gb laptop

[anthk]

2GB laptop here, I can run several qt5 applications, with Electron I would bring to its knees with just three.

[Fnoord]

Ripcord instead of Discord and Slack.

[anthk]

Or a bitlbee gateway + IRSSI.

[stjohnswarts]

Yeah if all text works for you doing a bridge through IRC is the way to go. I think weechat also has some add on for discord, slack, and element

[Fnoord]

Any of these is suffice but I thought it was nice adding a mention of a lightweight Qt application.

[Iwan-Zotow]

I can do this but cannot do that at the same time.

Having 2Gb is pretty limited

[stef-13013]

Yes it is true, but in terms of CPU, there is an issue too... (Lots of sub-processes by apps, means higher context switching, etc.)

And If I need 32GB and 16-CPU to run 5 or 6 apps...

Asimov was right after all :)

[johnisgood]

Why is it the minimum though? Have we ever thought of that? I have 8 GB and it is increasingly becoming a problem and I will have to upgrade just because I want to have a browser and IntelliJ open.

[stef-13013]

Yes, It reminds me when Java has been released for the first time.

The mantra was : "Yes, pretty slow but don't panic, in a couple of months better hardware will fix that" !!

[pjmlp]

Hate to tell you, but 8GB is quite common across IT departments in 2020.

[Iwan-Zotow]

Then people with 8Gb laptops are limited to what they could do.

Hardware matters more than people

Do you really wants to limit your folks in such way for something like $150?

[pjmlp]

$150 is one month salary in quite a few countries actually.

My personal laptop has 8 GB, is 10 years old by now, I am not limited in anything I care about.

[stockerta]

In what world? In many parts of the world, the only machine people can afford have 4-8Gb RAM, And those machines cost a month pay.

[ulisesrmzroche]

So what? This is a business decision. You’re not likely to be a customer so why bother spending the effort?