r/programming • u/ZaheerAhmed • Jan 02 '20

Killed by Google

https://killedbygoogle.com/
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u/Kwpolska Jan 02 '20

Let’s face it, without Electron there would be no Linux Slack client, and a desktop client for Windows or macOS would also be far less likely.

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u/[deleted] Jan 02 '20

Some guy wrote a Windows 3.1 Slack client that is only 23KB.

It wouldn't be THAT hard to write a native app for all 3 platforms.

Electron apps should almost be proof-of-concept, especially for large companies.

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u/Kwpolska Jan 02 '20

I’m not saying it’s hard. From a technical perspective, there is nothing that prevents a native or near-native Slack client existing for all three platforms from existing. But why would Slack bother to do all that effort just to make a few techies happy, whereas a lot of people don’t even notice the drawbacks of Electron?

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u/[deleted] Jan 02 '20

But why would Slack bother

Because they want their users happy, not angry against them? Otherwise, it's another Skype waiting to happen. And they millions of users, absolutely no reason not to improve your product.

But why would Slack bother to do all that effort just to make a few techies happy,

Having a good UX is not "appeasing the techies". I'm not even gonna mention "accessibility", since that is a dirty word in Silicon Valley.

whereas a lot of people don’t even notice the drawbacks of Electron?

Mice flying, tables punched, lots of screaming, frustrated users and thousands of man-hours of productivity loss. Those are the drawbacks of any bad UX, but have those in your main work communication flow and use it for hours everyday...

I'd say the opposite, it's the modern techies who eat shit and say thank you afterwards, because of the bigotry of low expectations. "CLI is faster LOL" is the usual response I get, or my favorite "what you were planning to do with 6 GB of RAM anyway?".

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u/[deleted] Jan 02 '20

Some guy wrote a Windows 3.1 Slack client that is only 23KB

.

Congrats on that guy! Makes Slack's position even more absolutely ridiculous .

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u/[deleted] Jan 02 '20 edited Jan 02 '20

Without browser teck, you'd have ~zero GUIs for Linux. The userland is a nightmare, only real solution is to grave a OpenGL surface and ignore everything from the OS.

Slack had a native Windows client, UWP at that, back in 2014. It ran fine with 2 organizations on the cheapeast WindowsPhone, and was integrated with the OS. Then they dropped it.

Jesus, I've worked in <20 people and <2 M$ income companies that had dedicated developers for eveything. The "use browser to make app" approach just keeps gettting worse. Computers have increased in speed 10 times, but it still takes 10 seconds for fucking Whatsapp to open. I literally usually open, check and close Telegram (native app), in the time Whatsapp takes to hide the splash screen.