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Electron and the Decline of Native Apps (daringfireball.net)
SwiftOnSecurity, regarding Microsoft's switch to Chromium as Windows's built-in rendering engine: This isn't about Chrome. This is about ElectronJS. Microsoft thinks EdgeHTML cannot get to drop-in feature-parity with Chromium to replace it in Electron apps, whose duplication is becoming a significant performance drain. They want to single-instance Electron with their own fork. Electron is a cancer murdering both macOS and Windows as it proliferates. Microsoft must offer a drop-in version with native optimizations to improve performance and resource utilization. This is the end of desktop applications. There's nowhere but JavaScript.
John Gruber of DaringFireball: I don't share the depth of their pessimism regarding native apps, but Electron is without question a scourge. I think the Mac will prove more resilient than Windows, because the Mac is the platform that attracts people who care. But I worry. In some ways, the worst thing that ever happened to the Mac is that it got so much more popular a decade ago. In theory, that should have been nothing but good news for the platform -- more users means more attention from developers. The more Mac users there are, the more Mac apps we should see.
The problem is, the users who really care about good native apps -- users who know HIG violations when they see them, who care about performance, who care about Mac apps being right -- were mostly already on the Mac. A lot of newer Mac users either don't know or don't care about what makes for a good Mac app.
The problem is, the users who really care about good native apps -- users who know HIG violations when they see them, who care about performance, who care about Mac apps being right -- were mostly already on the Mac. A lot of newer Mac users either don't know or don't care about what makes for a good Mac app.
"I think the Mac will prove more resilient than Windows, because the Mac is the platform that attracts people who care."
Ha.
Hahah.
Aaaaahahha.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
People are coming up with all sorts of contorted logic about the switch when there is an easy answer - it costs a lot of money to write and maintain a browser engine. So why not re-use the open source one that has the widest usage at a fraction of the cost.
Shhh. He likes his rock. Don’t disturb him.
So you ship a web browser, and a client, and application logic and call it an "app"?
Yes, but it's not as performant as you make it sound...
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