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Re:Ask HN: Why aren't there any real alternatives to Electron? by chakkepolja on Saturday March 26, 2022 @08:47AM (#30811368)
I think this answer does not emphasize the main point enough.

It's not about the quality of chromium at all, only ubiquity.

Web developers are cheap, its easy to port website's code and slap UI on it. That is the _main_ point.

The manager for whom electron is an option is least bothered by chrome being technically solid foundation. His motive is using cheap webshits and ticking a box.

Doesn't help other cross platform toolkits are either outdated, or immature, or in a weird position like Qt.

Our industry always optimized for some sort of local maxima. From a purely engineering perspective, scripting languages, or hacky UNIX/C glue, or weak typing, would not have made sense at all. But they sticked, because they fulfilled immediate commercial needs.

I don't know if this phenomenon is prevalent in other disciplines of engineering or there is a common name for it.

Re:Ask HN: Why aren't there any real alternatives to Electron? by wiggledrome on Saturday March 26, 2022 @08:50PM (#30816714)
Webshit? really dude.

I started off as a desktop publisher, moved up to graphic designer in the creative hub of my country, doing 3d design and video editing, from there I moved to animation and then to user interface design. throwing around 'webshit' is elitist at best and derogatory at worst. As if lack mental ability to do your job? Can you do mine?

You dont see any of us throwing around 'backend-bellend' when talking about fellow programmers.

respect the field, we are all in it.

Re:Ask HN: Why aren't there any real alternatives to Electron? by chakkepolja on Sunday March 27, 2022 @09:53AM (#30820236)
Doesnt change the fact that 70% of web developers are shit at their job.
Re:Ask HN: Why aren't there any real alternatives to Electron? by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Sunday March 27, 2022 @11:55AM (#30821233)
70% of every field is shit at their jobs.

We don't call it 'webshit' because the people are shit, we call it that because the product is shit. A pile of garbage abstractions built on other garbage abstractions all ultimately trying to make a document viewer into an application platform.

Re:Ask HN: Why aren't there any real alternatives to Electron? by wiggledrome on Sunday March 27, 2022 @10:09AM (#30820377)
Instead of acknowledging that there are talented programmers in JS you doubled down and cite a number made up from your mind that says 7 out of 10 JS devs are shit. I dont think all backened devs are arrogant, but I know one is.
Re:Ask HN: Why aren't there any real alternatives to Electron? by bsder on Saturday March 26, 2022 @07:20PM (#30816238)
> It's not about the quality of chromium at all, only ubiquity.

Bingo.

I don't understand why people keep failing to learn this lesson.

Java became popular because Sun drove it to become default installed on lots of enterprise computers. Python later became popular because if you had a standalone computer you had "batteries included" so you had the same stuff always installed.

And what people keep forgetting is that Electron is the low friction way of supporting Linux and macOS--whom most programmers would mostly like to ignore. If you write your app in Electron, you write on Windows, claim you support Linux and macOS and then ignore them.

Re:Ask HN: Why aren't there any real alternatives to Electron? by badpun on Sunday March 27, 2022 @08:04AM (#30819607)
Java became popular on server side because alternatives were much worse (either lacking static typing like Perl or harder to develop like C++) AND Java was cross-platform. Back in those times, servers weren’t just x86+Linux boxes they are today, but had distinct os-es and CPU architectures.