API-wise, native apps lost to web apps a long time ago. Native APIs are terrible to use, and OS vendors use everything in their power to make you not want to develop native apps for their platform.

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[–] 27 points 8 months ago

I have no dog in this race as far as Claude is concerned, but this is pushing a false dichotomy. Not using, say, WinForms or something, because it's too limiting or because you don't want to make a unique UI for every platform, doesn't have to mean strapping an entire web browser to your frontend, there are plenty of other options.

The reason frameworks like Electron are popular is that we've spent a long time hammering a square peg into a round hole and there are now a whole bunch of tools for designing on top of web technologies and a lot of designers with experience with those tools. And of course, the fact that code can be reused between the web app and the desktop app helps too. But it does have a performance cost. The fact that you can have poorly performing and bloated native UIs too doesn't change that no matter how well-optimised your HTML+CSS+JS is, you can create something of the same complexity that is faster and leaner using native widgets. And when people opt for the desktop app instead of web app, they typically want something that performs better than the web app.

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  • [+] 27 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (7 children)
  • [–] [S] 2 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Imagine being such a slop-brainwashed fanboi

    Do you have any evidence for this? Looking through the post, and the author's other blog post titles, there is very little mention of AI or Claude.

    Instead of throwing labels at the author, it's much more worthwhile to discuss their key argument about the challenges of developing native apps.

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  • [+] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)
  • [–] [S] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I think you're misconstruing the author's argument, at no point does the author imply that Claude knows best, or that Electron apps are better. Their closing argument is certainly not an endorsement for Electron or AI slop.

    Don’t get me wrong: writing this brings me no joy. I don’t think web is a solution either. I just remember good times when native did a better-than-average job, and we were all better for using it, and it saddens me that these times have passed.

    I just don’t think that kidding ourselves that the only problem with software is Electron and it all will be butterflies and unicorns once we rewrite Slack in SwiftUI is not productive. The real problem is a lack of care. And the slop; you can build it with any stack.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Do you actually expect people to read past the headline? All the way to the end too, preposterous!

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago

    I feel like that meme works here:

    You: Don't use Claude because it's Electron.

    Me: Don't use Claude because it is AI related.

    We are not the same.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    because we've lost native

    Speak for yourself.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    OpenCode is written in JS and uses Bun. Eats ram and crashes everyday.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago
    [+] 2 points 8 months ago* (1 child)