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This is kind of the reverse of what I would want. I want to use html/css/js to create my front-end, Although it is more resource intensive then Qt, it is simpl

This is kind of the reverse of what I would want. I want to use html/css/js to create my front-end, Although it is more resource intensive then Qt, it is simply more flexible and has a much richer eco-system to rely on. Meanwhile the usage of chrome as a run-time is one of the worst parts of electron as every app consumes a lot more memory than a "native" application would need. These days Chrome is so highly sophisticated by now you could easily call it an OS. It comes with a lot of baggage from a Driverstack for Sound, Joysticks and Accelerometers to a whole suite of debugging tools. Don't get me wrong. Electron is good for what it is: a way to easily write portable apps which can share codebase with a SaaS-Platforms. I would just wish developers would have just taken a different approach e.g. using a more striped down version of chrome or maybe even use Firefox/Servo.

chodeboy 7y ago
Thinking more hard about it I can't really say that electron is pretty much an anti-pattern. The idea/strategy behind chrome is simple though sophisticated: 1. Move all the software to the cloud. 2. Have a browser which pretty much lets you do anything you could with a regular OS from generating sound to using various input devices, to secret management, to displaying 3d content, etc., etc. 3. People will use the browser for everything from document writing (gsuite), to movie watching (youtube) to gaming (stadia), to file admin (drive) without every needing to install anything locally ever again. 4. You are now owning the OS market with win/mac/linux only serving as a VM to run Chrome which is essentially the portal to 99% of the Software your userbase uses. Tinfoilhattery and cynicism aside, I don't think electron, where you actually try reverse the browser into its subservient state as a simple "app" is a sound strategy. This clash of philosophy really shows in the technical shortcomings of electron. If you want an actually interesting project create a small thin runtime that allows you to build html/css/js user interfaces rather than trying to make Qt great again by porting it to chrome.
chrisco255 7y ago
Node and Chrome are both built on V8, so the synergy between the two is significant. I agree though, it would be interesting to see a Servo-based app framework, but I suppose Electron already has first-mover advantage at this point.
z3t4 7y ago
There are also hosted web apps / progressive web apps. It's like Electron but without Node.JS.

chodeboy 7y ago

Thinking more hard about it I can't really say that electron is pretty much an anti-pattern. The idea/strategy behind chrome is simple though sophisticated: 1. Move all the software to the cloud. 2. Have a browser which pretty much lets you do anything you could with a regular OS from generating sound to using various input devices, to secret management, to displaying 3d content, etc., etc. 3. People will use the browser for everything from document writing (gsuite), to movie watching (youtube) to gaming (stadia), to file admin (drive) without every needing to install anything locally ever again. 4. You are now owning the OS market with win/mac/linux only serving as a VM to run Chrome which is essentially the portal to 99% of the Software your userbase uses. Tinfoilhattery and cynicism aside, I don't think electron, where you actually try reverse the browser into its subservient state as a simple "app" is a sound strategy. This clash of philosophy really shows in the technical shortcomings of electron. If you want an actually interesting project create a small thin runtime that allows you to build html/css/js user interfaces rather than trying to make Qt great again by porting it to chrome.

chrisco255 7y ago

Node and Chrome are both built on V8, so the synergy between the two is significant. I agree though, it would be interesting to see a Servo-based app framework, but I suppose Electron already has first-mover advantage at this point.

z3t4 7y ago

There are also hosted web apps / progressive web apps. It's like Electron but without Node.JS.