Sometimes, it's better without these features. E.g. on Mac, dragging left in the browser is a gesture for going back to the previous page, and I can't count how many times I've accidentally triggered that while filling out a web form or interacting with a page. Isn't the back button and the keyboard shortcut enough?
"As part of their plans, Geiser said the finished development would include a variety of silicon-transistor-themed artwork as well as a plaque and photos to commemorate the Shockley building."
Outlets like The Information [1] are more like TechCrunch of 2006 with thoughtful analysis and researched facts, not just latest app hype. It's $$ paywalled, but maybe that's what it takes to produce non-clickbait stuff today.
We're also consuming differently: information is algorithmically curated (see Facebook News Feed, recent feed changes on Twitter/Instagram, etc.) Previously it was possible to see everything, the raw data so to say, now only a subset remains.
Am I the only one unhappy with the trend of moving toward web-wrapper applications? As a developer, I also love the idea of cross-platform, and of more elegant frameworks, but it pains me to run things that are slower or hog the battery.
* JavaScript-heavy Spotify now vs. Spotify a few years ago
* Atom vs. something like Sublime Text
* Or, Slack that takes the cake especially if you log in to multiple Slacks.
It's cool for developers. It's not cool for the users.
Electron apps don't appear to play nice with the underlying API.
Take Spotify and Slack, for example. It makes sense that it should expose its API via AppleScript (on Mac), COM (on Windows), and DBUS (on Linux). These let you do neat things like, for example, use a PowerShell (or bash or AppleScript) script to update your Slack status to the name of the track that's playing.
Whether you'd WANT that specific functionality or not is beside the point, the fact that the functionality exists means that people will do cool things with it. More importantly, it means that people will do things the developer never thought of.
Except, the underlying backend of an electron app is a local node.js server. It's not only easy to open up a local API for an Electron app, it's platform independent.
Platform independence is nice, but generally that means it plays poorly on every platform.
Looking at Atom's API docs, for example, tells me that there's a very rich API that doesn't appear to be exposed in any way that's native to the underlying platform.
> Am I the only one unhappy with the trend of moving toward web-wrapper applications?
No, you're not. In fact, every time any link shows up on the Hacker News front page that has to do with using HTML/JS/CSS to build native applications the comments on it are usually dominated by people who are "unhappy with the trend toward web-wrapper applications".
> It's cool for developers. It's not cool for the users.
Here's the thing, if it's not cool for developers, then it might not even get built, and that's really not cool for the users. So if I had to choose between less performant code but more software options for users and more performant code but some software people really want or need not being developed, I'd choose the former.
You're not the only one. I'm very unhappy with this trend myself. Just when you thought people can't invent any new ways of slowing present machines down to a crawl, this happens.
Slack and Spotify are two examples of apps that have gotten worse and worse. Slack is CPU heavy as hell. Spotify is laggy and feels like a website rather than a native app.
Here's the thing: What's the #1 application that people use today on their desktops? Browsers.
There's a really high chance that you had another browser process open that was dedicated to writing your comment. Mobile included as the HA app is a Cordova-based solution.
But you feel compelled to say that thing that you used to accomplish your reading and commenting task was somehow slower and hogged your battery.
It got the job done didn't it?
Further, what's the #1 tech that some really smart people are focused on optimizing because of its usage. Yeah, again, the browser.
Show me another standards-based general UI stack that has had as much man hours dedicated to optimization... AWT/Swing/JavaFX? laugh. WPF, also really slow. WinForms? Not a lot of dev going on there at the moment.
The problem with Electron isn't just the fact that it's browser based. It's that it's a different browser. If I run slack, spotify, atom, and an actual browser all at once, my computer is going to slow to a halt. What electron needs is some way to run in concert with my actual browser, or some kind of hub process that coordinates them to reduce the absurd memory and disk space footprint.
generally Chrome and IE/Edge spawn separate processes per tab for isolation, but will sometimes group them based on some conditions. On the flipside I'd hate to have some 3rd party program bring down my browser.
So I get what you're saying, but the worst case is that your browser will do the same thing for each tab.
Software like Excel which will spawn a different instance of Excel for each workbook, even though it could theoretically be a single process... so it's not like native apps are a panacea in your argument.
An internet comment is a great example of a use case the browser is good for because it's low effort, low in specialized skills, and disposable.
Now we're talking about writing applications with web technologies for high specialized skill and high effort tasks, e.g., code editors, photoshop clones, etc... Which is what a lot of us are skeptical of. These "professional" applications are designed to reward a huge investment in muscle memory, if you are putting so much effort into learning an application, you don't want the return on that investment to be stunted by limitations in the technology the tool is built with.
Not following that last statement. There's no guarantee if I build my desktop application with XYZ framework that some technological limitation will crop up with it.
How much emphasis is being placed on JavaFX/Swing/AWT these days. Not so much. WPF? Microsoft has said that "...we are not investing in any major changes to WPF"
There is so much effort being placed in HTML/JS optimizations by WK, Blink, Edge folks that it's hard to find another framework with as much emphasis placed on it.
I'm talking about limitations in web apps that exist right now. For example with browser-based apps:
* Lack of data ownership, how do you export/backup?
* Poor keyboard shortcut support, e.g., constant conflicts between the browser itself and the app being run in the browser
With Electron based apps:
* Performance obviously, this might get better in the future, but that's a big bet of your time investment in learning and building on the tool. The fact that Atom is slow on a top-of-the-line machine is concerning. Sure that'll improve in time, but what if I also want to run it on more constrained device, tablets, etc...
* Electron apps still have a long ways to go to support basic platform expectations, e.g., on OS X Atom doesn't Services, AppleScript, or piping to the command line utility.
I wear jeans (made in the U.S.[0]), sneakers (made in the U.S.[1]), and t-shirts (made in the U.S.[2]) because they're comfortable. On the other hand, I very rarely go out to any place that most anyone would call fancy. "Fine dining" for my spouse and I is Taco Time or a couple of places in Ballard[3] that we know to be open late and have cheap late happy hour food menus. (Oh, and socks[4], too.)
It's remarkable that in the US the much more dangerous general anesthesia is used for routine things like wisdom teeth when anesthetic shots (lidocaine) are significantly safer and simpler. This leads to additional complications due to anesthesia itself, or worse. [1] [2]
If your dentist proposes things like this, please, switch to someone else.
(For those unfamiliar, after the shots you feel not much other than some tugging. And you can get up and walk immediately after.)
As I recall, when I had my wisdom teeth out (around 1999-2000) the oral surgeon offered three options - local anesthetic only, local + some anesthetic gas (I remember he called it the "la-la land option"), or a full "you're totally out" anesthetic. I took the middle option, and I have some vague memories of people standing over me pulling on something in my mouth, but that's it. That would've been a pretty damn unpleasant experience if I was fully conscious, even if there was no pain.
I went to an oral surgeon who offered general anesthetic because he was digging out 4 impacted wisdom teeth at one and I don't do well with any kind of dental work.
Without the general I would still have the teeth today.
Right, I think I shouldn't pretend to define what the various words mean.
Still, I don't think the procedure used for wisdom teeth in the US has the same risks as the general anesthesia used in more involved surgeries. It's probably still reasonably described as sedation (in my story, I'm obviously still conscious, just not very aware. I didn't include it above, but I actually asked How much longer? and they just told me to go back to sleep).
I may be misreading. With only a year of instruction and no coding background previously, he was able to get a position at Google? Is this the norm?
As a hiring manager, I would be concerned that a candidate with such short exposure to the field and no real projects under their belt would just be too green to carry their weight.
> With only a year of instruction and no coding background previously, he was able to get a position at Google? Is this the norm?
That depends on your definition of "norm". The average person could probably spend their entire life preparing for a Google interview and never get an offer. Others could enter any field of their choosing and reach a very high level of competency in just a matter of months. Seems like the OP falls in the latter category.
As much as I liked the idea of Atom, giving it a genuine try for about six months, I ended up going back to trusty Sublime Text. Why? As a developer, I think it's silly to make my computer do more work than necessary, to take up more CPU and battery than needed. And, the subtle non-native sluggishness always seemed to reduce the usability, ever so slightly, not also counting the occasional "the editor has frozen" prompts.
Admittedly, Atom's background color is hands-down more eye pleasing with its slightly blue tint. Fortunately Sublime is skinnable.
I too abandoned Atom after a few month trial period. It has potential, but it just had so many issues that, upon opening Sublime Text again, I heaved a huge sigh of relief. That's not to say Atom is bad, but even now it's a bit rough around the edges.
I love the theme though. It's probably the only time I've opened an editor and didn't immediately look to change the theme. If I'm not mistaken, it's called "One Dark" but I could never find a good Sublime or Emacs clone.
FWIW, VS Code is built on top of Electron (like Atom) and AFAICT, doesn't have the perf issues that Atom does. Nor does the Slack client which is similarly built on Electron. I wonder what the root cause is, but I don't think it is an issue of it not being native.
I tried VS Code the other day after the big announcement but "Electron Helper" or something was routinely taking up 2-3% CPU, eating the battery. Why is there even a separate helper process? Will try again in a few months, I guess.
There's a separate helper process because Electron is based on Chromium, which has a multiprocess architecture - AFAIK "Electron Helper" is the same thing as "Google Chrome Helper". No idea about the CPU.
Yeah, it's unfortunate because I love the idea of Atom, and of course that it's free with no fuss to install wherever whenever at whatever number of times, and that the source is open. Simply a modern version of an extensible, easy to use editor and I think definitely has its place even despite what was already there in terms of editors.
However, I'm personally on Visual Studio Code now, which shares similar ideas on platform and extensibility, although it's not quite as great there as Atom. But good enough for me, and much faster. Good enough for me to not "need" Sublime Text, and to have a pretty convenient development experience in e.g. Go and scripting languages in terms of coding support features.
Uber has been a lifesaver, but main gripe with UberX as of recently is that they don't seem to screen cars very well, at least in the Bay Area. Dirty seats, older cars, noxious air fresheners, etc. all seem to be the norm. Yes, I do try to leave feedback but wishing the baseline was a notch higher.
Lyft requires drivers to go to a mentorship process but with Uber all you do is sending pictures of your driver license and car to become a driver.
Lyft also sends training videos and material to drivers. Because of the possibility of the tip drivers are trying their best.
It's a good idea to tip to drivers that do a good job. They are low income people and deserve that extra $1 more than your bartender that usually earns a good chunk of money each night.
With Uber I had to get a vehicle inspection and medical certificate which required a visit to the driver center. I believe the medical certificate is legal requirement in my state.
Lyft's mentorship process wasn't much of a process in my experience. I met a guy at his house, we talked for about 45 minutes, it was kind of helpful but I felt like Uber's onboarding was more organized.
Uber also has a number of training videos and I think they do a better job than Lyft at providing information to drivers.
I agree that the tipping thing is huge. When I drive, I get out of the car and open the door for the passengers, that kind of thing. I also make a point of keeping the car clean; at least vacuuming before I work a shift. I keep Armor All wipes in the car too so I can give a quick shine to the dashboard and the door frame (it gets scuffed up from people getting in and out and shows dirt quickly).
