[HN Gopher] Electron Spins: a special case of Chromium mods
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Electron Spins: a special case of Chromium mods
        
       Author : _feynon
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2024-11-17 21:20 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (littlebearlabs.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (littlebearlabs.io)
        
       | tlb wrote:
       | The list of examples isn't very compelling. Extensions should be
       | things that can't be done in Javascript.
        
         | moomin wrote:
         | We're talking desktop apps here. Why should they be written in
         | Javascript?
        
           | eyjafjallajokul wrote:
           | This is a technical decision some developers make because
           | they're well versed in Javascript, or because their business
           | can only fund the management of one codebase, or because
           | there's libraries that add massive convenience functions to
           | their development. Or because they believe that their UI
           | needs to have a consistent experience. Or <insert reason X,
           | Y, Z here>...
           | 
           | This whole article is about Chromium and Electron. I am not
           | sure what the purpose of your question is.
        
           | mschuster91 wrote:
           | Assuming the glue code to the native OS (i.e. things like
           | actual local file access, access to hardware, raw network
           | sockets) has roughly the same interface across all the major
           | platforms, you only need _one_ code base and it will run on
           | anything capable of running a web browser - phones, tablets,
           | fancy tablets and other embedded devices, all common computer
           | operating systems, game consoles, whatever. All the hard work
           | of maintaining a common runtime environment is abstracted to
           | the underlying browser framework, and the best is, whenever
           | the browser framework gets ported to some new platform,
           | _your_ app will get support for that platform as well for
           | virtually no effort and expense.
           | 
           | I get why people are upset at that (especially the sometimes
           | significant performance issues), but I also get why many
           | applications went down the "Electron everything" route. In
           | the end people who know C++ well enough to be able to deal
           | with cross-platform bullshit are expensive and coding for
           | cross-platform is a nightmare. There's a reason why there
           | aren't many "top dogs" left.
        
         | theamk wrote:
         | Disagree, Electron-based apps are known for being memory and
         | CPU hogs; if we want our laptops to run cool and for batteries
         | to last a long time, we need to move things to native code.
         | 
         | I think the "new protocol" example is particularly good one -
         | things like IPFS run complex daemons under the hood and might
         | access gigabytes of data, while their interface to browser is
         | relatively simple: a channel which takes small requests and
         | returns medium-sized responses. It's ideal case for moving to
         | native code.
         | 
         | (Of course it has its own downsides too, like losing ability to
         | run same codebase on the web. So far, I've been avoiding
         | Electron's usage by running web versions instead - Slack-on-
         | the-web is just as featureful as Slack-in-Electron, but shares
         | memory with my main browser. But for other applications, native
         | code should be a plus)
        
       | Elfener wrote:
       | The blue effect on the right side makes the page very laggy for
       | me.
        
       | snarfy wrote:
       | A quick glance at the headline makes me think this is about
       | electron spins in elemental chromium. I know, naming things is
       | hard, but c'mon people.
        
       | mwkaufma wrote:
       | Making a website with terrible perf to promote Electron --
       | unintended satire?
        
       | kelvinjps10 wrote:
       | The website is unusable in mobile, or at least firefox android.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-11-18 23:01 UTC)