News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by thiht on Thursday February 22, 2018 @05:00AM (#16436505)
So don't use it and use the web version. A potential native app is of no interest to me compared to an actual full featured Electron app.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by majewsky on Thursday February 22, 2018 @05:23AM (#16436598)
In some alternate reality, reasonable resource usage is considered a feature.

Meanwhile, in our universe, it's somehow considered reasonable to expend nearly six gigawatts (= 51 TWh per year) on a number-guessing game that will totally revolutionize global finance some day.

Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by placebo on Thursday February 22, 2018 @07:46AM (#16437166)
Resource usage in this reality will only become reasonable when there will be a noticeable penalty involved in unreasonable usage, but I guess it boils down to what you define as reasonable: If a noticeable penalty is measured by the end user then - sorry, enough users just don't care, which enables this technology to continue to gain popularity. If there was a law that companies need to pay a percentage of the energy their applications use then you'd quickly see everybody moving not only to native apps, but to the most efficient native apps.

In the meantime, the invisible hand is doing it's thing. Time will tell what it's thing will look like.

Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by pasabagi on Thursday February 22, 2018 @03:02PM (#16440878)
I think a brief look at the wiki page for 'Anthropocene' tells us exactly what the invisible hand is up to.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by beojan on Thursday February 22, 2018 @05:06AM (#16436528)
If the Electron app exists, there's a lot less incentive to write the native one.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by OberstKrueger on Thursday February 22, 2018 @06:04AM (#16436754)
See Slack. If Slack were still some plucky startup, I can understand it using Electron. But it's been around for a while now, and a more performant native application doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by laurent123456 on Thursday February 22, 2018 @07:10AM (#16436992)
Skype for a long time only had an outdated application on Linux. Now that MS converted it to Electron, it's available and regularly updated. The truth is, even for huge companies like Microsoft, the cost of doing a Linux-specific app is not worth it given the small user base, but with Electron they get this for free so they do it.

This is even more true for resource-limited open source projects, as cross-platform gui-based ones are difficult to get right, but Electron makes that easier.

Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by danieldk on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:34AM (#16438213)
Skype for a long time only had an outdated application on Linux. Now that MS converted it to Electron, it's available and regularly updated.

And now Mac users get the same terrible Electron app. The problem is that companies are not just making Electron apps for Linux users. They are replacing native well-integrated Mac and Windows applications by Electron apps (Skype) or do not consider writing native apps (Slack).

So, we had nicely integrated applications with Automator workflows, consistent shortcuts, consistent look and consistent feel. And we are replacing them by things that do not fit into the platform at all. No thanks.

Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by karpodiem on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:23AM (#16438126)
Now I've heard it all - a company with a seven hundred billion dollar market cap can't afford it. Come on. They can absolutely afford to do native Windows / MacOS / Linux cross platform. They're lazy/don't want to.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by alsetmusic on Thursday February 22, 2018 @11:57AM (#16439017)
> Now I've heard it all - a company with a seven hundred billion dollar market cap can't afford it. Come on. They can absolutely afford to do native Windows / MacOS / Linux cross platform. They're lazy/don't want to.

That’s a straw man argument. The parent said that Linux development might not be worth the cost. They didn’t say anything about the ability to pay.

Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by v_lisivka on Thursday February 22, 2018 @04:35PM (#16441615)
So we, linux users, actively promoting alternatives for Skype, to increase cost of ignoring us.

«Team, M$ killed Skype for linux, I cannot use it anymore, let switch to something else, like Slack.»

Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by RaleyField on Thursday February 22, 2018 @03:04PM (#16440900)
They can afford it. They can also afford to put a man on the moon, but it isn't necessarily financially reasonable for them to do so. Think of Microsoft as a collection of teams, each team can't afford to spend "Microsoft" money on its project unless its strategically important. The fact that we don't have native app probably indicates that Microsoft thinks Skype is past its peak of popularity. Thinking of many competing products I understand why.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by gbersac on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:26PM (#16439297)
They can do it but if it's not profitable, they won't. It's not being lazy, it's being smart in the capitalist sense.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by karpodiem on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:29PM (#16439333)
I'm fine with that, just call it like it is. This is what Microsoft truly thinks of developing a 1st class open-source solution - not worth their time because it's not profitable enough. So they'll give you a second class solution with the assumption you'd rather have that then nothing.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by xioxox on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:46AM (#16438310)
Skype used to have a small, snappy and useful app for Linux. Now that MS converted it to Electron, I no longer use it. Qt makes multiplatform apps trivial. Even I, as a hobbyist free software developer, can provide binaries for Linux, Windows and Mac.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by jrs95 on Thursday February 22, 2018 @11:44AM (#16438887)
A lot of people, myself included, actually preferred the Linux version of Skype.

But to be honest, I'd rather have no GUI app on Mac/Linux at all than have it basically be a requirement to waste resources on Slack or whatever other crap and to have developer energy tied up in an editor as shitty as Atom.

Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by amedvednikov on Thursday February 22, 2018 @08:50AM (#16437497)
I'm working on a native client for Slack, Skype, Twitter etc.

It's only 90 KB (!)

https://eul.im

Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by mamcx on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:45PM (#16439493)
How you do this? Probably some of us could guess, but maybe will help people that only know electron :)
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by amedvednikov on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:47PM (#16439521)
Cocoa on macOS, WinAPI on Windows, GTK on Linux.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by stephenr on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:43PM (#16439478)
Is this the one that uses OpenGL or something to render everything (ie nonnative text controls etc)?
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by amedvednikov on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:47PM (#16439514)
Not any more. Now it uses native controls.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by stephenr on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:51PM (#16439551)
Oh nice, I need to check this out then!
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by blackoil on Thursday February 22, 2018 @09:23AM (#16437681)
Is it 90kb installer or complete app? Also what are using to build the interface?
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by amedvednikov on Thursday February 22, 2018 @09:37AM (#16437781)
It's the complete app. Cocoa on macos, WinAPI on Windows, GTK on Linux.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by v_lisivka on Thursday February 22, 2018 @04:53PM (#16441792)
Nice joke. Repository is empty. Source archives are empty. Binary release for Linux: 404.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by sincerely on Friday February 23, 2018 @08:29AM (#16446157)
the dev is using github as a bug tracker, not as a place to host code. if thats’s a problem for you feel free not to download it
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by v_lisivka on Friday February 23, 2018 @05:03PM (#16450018)
The dev released source archive for Linux to compile code by yourself. Empty source archive.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by amedvednikov on Friday February 23, 2018 @07:16PM (#16450777)
This is not true. Nothing has been released for Linux yet.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by v_lisivka on Sunday February 25, 2018 @05:48AM (#16458309)
This is true. Nothing has been released for Linux yet.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by Aelius on Thursday February 22, 2018 @07:09AM (#16436991)
Luckily Slack has the IRC and XMPP bridges. can't imagine any other protocols with a wealth of highly performant clients to choose from.

Unlucky for me, my admins refuse to enable the bridges and also won't grant me an API key for use with the weechat slack plugin.

I hate Slack so much. Slow and miserable and unconfigurable and just crashes at least once a month.

Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by detaro on Thursday February 22, 2018 @07:22AM (#16437035)
Sadly, Slack also happily breaks the protocols in their bridges, e.g. producing invalid IRC usernames. So even though our Slack has the bridge enabled, I can't login to it since it wants me to put a dot in my nick.
Re:Electron 2.0.0 beta by mateuszf on Thursday February 22, 2018 @06:04AM (#16436750)
If the Electron app exists, often the alternative is no app at all.