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by FigBug
4065 days ago
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I don't think it's more skill, just different. I currently work on a DAW. I left for a while because I thought my skills were becoming obsolete and I needed to get in on this 'web' thing. I was useless and I lasted 9 months. To just jump in and learn html/js/css + everything else you need to be a web developer is a huge task. And a lot of stuff just doesn't work -- and the only way to know how to get it to work is experience. By contrast I think C++ and realtime audio programming is simple, but I've slowly picked it up over almost 20 years. I retreated back to desktop apps and firmware. I'll take another stab at learning web technologies, but not at a startup where I need to deliver asap and learn at the same time. As much as developers hate sandboxes, the lack of one (except Mac OS until recently) is why I think desktop is failing. Users just don't feel safe installing random software like they do going to websites or installing mobile apps. Users have been conditioned to only install software from sources they trust, and they trust no one. If I post a link to my new web project, most people will click on it. If I post a link to an .exe almost nobody will download it. I think that's the main issue killing the desktop. Big downloads, compatibility issues, slow installs are also an issue, but I think they are secondary. |
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The goal for the desktop that I was talking about had nothing to do with these webby things. These should stay on the web and do their thing. You can have those small simple programs as a web app and on your phone. I think the downfall of the desktop is that people use them as if they were feeble things with a mail program and a web browser and some office programs on it, when they're actually capable of much more, which isn't leveraged except for some professional programs and games.
The desktop is - in my opinion - not primarily meant for little things. The desktop can and should handle the bleeding edge of high performance, parallel and accelerated computing that can't possibly run on anything else but a desktop. If we would stop thinking about whether a program will run well on a phone and explicitly target real computers, there would be a lot more purpose to desktop computing.
I'm not sure what that might be that doesn't exist, yet (maybe VR). But I'm sure that you can't do this all by yourself in a windowless room over a weekend, it'll probably be a large project involving quite a few programmers.
Then, the question of whether users will download your software is not the same as whether they will click on a website. Then, it's the same question as will they download Photoshop, will they download Reaper or will they download Maya? Will people download the next big thing in desktop computing?