* I make enough web-based things for my job, and I enjoy developing in Flutter / Dart (what this was built in).

* I’m never realistically going to be looking through names on a desktop; I use the app when I have a few minutes to kill in line or something where I can pull out my phone, decide on a few names, and then go back to what I was doing. I could build it as an offline web-app that gets saved to my device but then why not just build an app in the first place?

* I like using SQL for retrieving data, and I don’t want to have to jump through hoops to do so.

It's also interesting how this question shifted over time! It used to be that people would ask why you made a Perl CGI or PHP app when you could've just made a desktop app.

ps: congrats on the new baby!

Thanks!

For the father at least...

Congrats!

You could track whether specific locations, or time of day/week, result in liking certain types of names. Version 2.

...it sounds horrific, I'm glad OP went with this model.

`shuf /usr/share/dict/words` was how I picked my HN username.

The list is biased. Not only does it only have U.S. births, but also only those where the individual has a Social Security Number. I wonder how many the latter rules out.

For privacy, it also drops names that are rare, with fewer than 5 births in a given year.

(App is open source, so it’s easy to discover that’s where the names come from. See https://github.com/hamaluik/nomdebebe/blob/main/app/NAMES.md)

I trust the browser sandbox a million times more than I trust the phone app sandbox.

I.e. it's not the web page that is static rather the files to host the web page are static vs say being a php site dynamically generating responses based on user/session/request information.

Indeed. Especially if you want to piss off potensial users/customers.

> There's a difference between asking a question, making a suggestion and shoving ideals down somebody's throat.

Unfortunately, the "ideal" for many is to have an app for their - well - app, or service, whatever it might be. Usually it's just a perfectly functioning responsive web service that is turned to a native app instead of just going for a hybrid app (at least to start with).

In this specific case, there's is _absolutely no reason_ it should be provided as an app, at least not a native one.

Because:

The user already has everything installed on his phone to use the service; a browser.

To me, _as a (potential) user_, having to install this app would have been showing something down my throat. To solve that problem, the developer could have created it as a responsive web application first, and maybe made an hybrid app, and then decided if it is worthwhile creating a native app.

Why the desparate need to create native apps and have to maintain two totally different projects when there's no need to?

Then why make an app out of something that would work just as well with something I have already installed on my phone?

In this case it's very easy: if all the functionality can be run in the browser, which already is an app installed on my computer, don't make it an app. At least not a native one.

I said: don't _create_ apps that shouldn't be apps.