[Interest] QML vs Electron

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 16/02/18 16:53, Bob Hood wrote:
> I want to thank all the respondents for such an interesting discussion.
> 
> I think René made some interesting observations regarding the massive 
> community support for JS in term of package managers, frameworks and UI 
> toolkits.  I think that is something that really presents a high bar of 
> entry for QML, that everybody wanting to use it must basically roll 
> their own.  As I pointed out, coming from a widget-rich environment to 
> something where I must create my own has always kept me from adopting 
> QML as my cross-device framework of choice.  I have to focus on writing 
> the interface itself first before I can focus on writing my application 
> logic.With widgets, I drop them in, and only focus on interface writing 
> if I want to customize them.
> 
> Nikos pointed out:
> 
>> Electron forces you to write the entire application in JS.
> 
> That kind of struck me.  All of JavaScript's flaws notwithstanding, how 
> could writing your application in a single language for all target 
> devices be a bad thing?
My application is not the most important thing in my user's life. Many 
developers think the app they ship is *THE* most important app for their 
users. So it's OK if it eats up half a GB of RAM more and burns CPU 
cycles for nothing, or runs like a pig on low-end or old computers, or 
looks alien on their desktop. The app is so important that these 
sacrifices are justified.

The "my app is a precious special little snowflake, so it's OK" attitude 
is what makes Electron popular.

The user's life doesn't revolve around my app. It's just one app out of 
dozens or hundreds they're using. If all applications were using 
Electron, then each one of them would eat up half a GB more RAM, burn 
CPU cycles for nothing and run like pigs on low-end computers, and 
computing would turn into a shit-show quickly.

Also, take off the developer hat and just view yourself as a user. Would 
you like it if *all* your applications were suddenly Electron apps? 
(With everything that entails, including their look&feel.) Great, huh?

And no, you don't get to say "but not all applications are Electon apps, 
just mine is, because it needs to." Your app *is not a precious little 
snowflake*.

So I wouldn't want to ship stuff that I wouldn't use myself, if I can 
help it. The only Electron apps I use are those where I can't find any 
viable alternatives. Surely that's not a good developer-user 
relationship to have, if your users are just waiting for the first 
opportunity to jump ship.