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Am I the only one who hates it that everything needs to be done in JavaScript nowadays?
Why can't you just start writing native software again? Why does every program need its own fucking browser engine and at least 200MB of RAM to do nothing but show and edit text?
I want to have fast and streamlined software again and use my resources for important things. So much software that is called fast or lightweight isn't either. It's just a little less heavy and slow than the software it tries to replace.
I don't use C all the time, but maybe looking into Qt instead of electron might be a start.
I had a project where I could convince my tutors to let me use C++ instead of JS and they were surprised how fast my application started even though it only consisted only of a empty window with a status bar. How far have we come that we even need to think about performance when opening an empty window on modern hardware?

Comments
  • 14
    It'll come back. It's always the same cycle taking a few years:

    1) Devs make native software
    2) Devs get upset to implement every single software a dozen times for each system
    3) Devs develop multi-platform frameworks to get rid of 2)
    4) Devs get upset because the multi-platform frameworks let them not do everything a native software can
    5) Goto 1)

    Often the step from 4) to 5) is accompanied by
    4a) a new and shiny system appears somewhere promising heaven and earth
  • 2
    My electron app starts fast pretty much instantly actually...

    It is 2017 memory is cheap.
  • 1
    @Artemix I know that Qt is a C++ framework. The comment to C wasn't really connected to Qt, just bad wording ;)
  • 9
    I see your point but for the people of us who don't want to learn every platform when releasing an app, stuff like electron, ionic and phonegap are ideal!
  • 0
    @spacem Memory costs about twice as much now than it did a couple of years ago.
  • 2
    @Jop- I never said it was efficient. I'm just saying that for me it's ideal because I don't have time right now to learn native stuffs :)
  • 1
    @Artemix Yeah those exist and are pretty awesome imo actually but I already know the web stack and as I also said to Jop-, don't have time to learn much new stuff right now :/
  • 3
    Well... Javascript is supposed to be used in a browser....
    Is making a web app why use electron?
    It's like making a VM to run a single program...
    JS is good to make web apps that are server based...
    No need for a server? Then why limit the possibilities of the software? I mean, JS doesn't really have local databases (using browser space is fun till you clean the temporary files and then App is reseted to default settings...
    You have C# and visual basic to make native software faster (really love drag and drop languages)
    Else you have python with qt, tkinder, kivy...
    Or C...
    Or C++
    Or even pascal (Lazarus)

    Me like JS... But I don't drive my car in a river... Cars are for driving, botes to float and planes to fly... Any work arround usually gives a car that can float but doesn't drive as good as other cars, or a plane that can float but won't fly as good, or a car that can fly but sucks on the road...
  • 0
    @RodrigoF what if you need your app to work offline?
  • 0
    @Devman Save tue web app locally and run it in your browser from a local location.
    Beside that most apps don't work offline anyway (e.g. chat clients).
  • 0
    Youre not alone, im hate it so much too. Many fuckin people create more fuckin tools that actually worst but still many people use it.
  • 1
    @Devman then python, c, c#, visual basic...
    My company makes its own management software (and then sell it) and all web based.
    They don't use electron... Cause you can just use chrome
    And its all server based.
    For me, JS as apps is only good if your going to work with servers
    Else it's a waste of ram and cpu
    All terminals are based on micro computers so it can't be heavy
  • 0
    @JustKidding yep C, C++, Qt are awesome, idk why ppl are so into javascript 😰
  • 3
    @denisal because js is awesome.
  • 1
    @nicholai Yeah for web dev I agree, but if you want to do high performance graphics, simulations, heavy desktop software Javascript can't help you!!!
  • 0
    I feel you bro
  • 1
    Me likes JS. Me hates it sometimes. Me likes your rant.
  • 0
    @nicholai most of my development is in javascript and I'm here to tell you there is almost nothing "awesome" about it...sorry to burst the bubbles and stuff...
  • 1
    @KidLaser I've written many thousands of JS lines and I still think it's awesome. Mind you, I've worked with C#, C, Java, php, delphi/turbo pascal, python, lua and VB, and I honestly think JS is the more fun language in this bunch.
  • 0
    The JIT compilers in edge and chrome are actually pretty impressive in speed. Comparable to compilers such gcc and clang. Especially when run in asm.
    Source: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/12/...

    In combination with WebGL HTML5 , websockets, local storage, geolocation and JavaScript. Webapps can do whatever a native application does. Without the constraints of platform dependence, never updating or deployment through an app store.

    The performance decrease is often due the amount of pixel tracking, analytics, poor wordpress plugins and huge amount of hd images.

    As a long time gnu/linux user it’s heartwarming to be no longer left out on app bandwagon.
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