It's beyond me why anyone would write a desktop application in JS, CSS, and HTML, and require node as a dependency. These technologies are already bastard children of the 'just make it work' mentality. Using them for an environment they were never designed for, when there is decades of existing infrastructure purpose-built (and far easier to use), makes no sense. The only reason that I can come up with for why someone would build a desktop app with these technologies is that they cbf to learn to use the correct tools for the job.
As for "the best client for developers" -- I'll stick with irssi, thanks.
This kind of elitism is what turns so many people off about technology. What if these are kids that are building this? Do you care so much about your view that you would want to shut them down? Not everyone has the time or interest in learning systems programming or C/C++.
In the end, optimization forces operating at levels beyond our comprehension and ability to fully model will determine whether or not this project sees continued development. Personal lives, adcademic interest, social proliferation of memes, economic constraints...all serve as inputs. Don't force an outcome like this. You might damage the author's impetus to try again with more ambition in the future. Let nature run its course; you may occasionally find yourself surprised by the outcome.
In general, it is pointless to rationalize your choices to the rest of the world, which frankly doesn't put as much effort into listening as you might think.
Sorry if I come across as rude. I just think this could be better framed as constructive criticism.
I'm not being elitist. I'm stating my opinion; if you take it as an affront, that's not my problem. So what if they're kids? Do you expect me to self-censor in order to potentially spare the feelings of a developer who may or may not be young? If what they're doing is better, then in time, I'll be proven wrong. As you say, let nature run its course.
Hacker News is a place where people discuss technology. Opinion is inherent in discussion. I don't apologize for anything I wrote.
Why would I be outraged by an opinion on the internet unless it were truly deplorable or inhumanely despicable? To characterize my amiable response to you in such a way is borderline ad hominem. (Perhaps you don't mean it to be, but it is in keeping with the definition.)
Because I find the lens of another's opinion or experience a useful tool in normalizing perception, I'm going to state my personal reaction to your posts. I sincerely do not mean to insult or offend you. If you feel differently, I understand. To me, a tone like yours paints a picture of a defensive, self-righteous bully. You state that you will not be censored, yet your language is coercive and might implicitly have that exact effect upon others. Would you really want to hurt someone else's ambition? There are enough problems in the world already without adding to the weight of their burden.
Again, just my personal take on your comments.
On a related note, try to better frame your arguments for the benefit of everyone else here. If you disagree with something, qualify your assertions so that they might be useful instead of adding more noise and entropy. For instance, you could have written a compelling and thoughtful argument about why you consider the DOM to be the wrong solution. Making an effort to write in this manner adds significant weight to your argument and brings value to those that are reading.
Take this as my personal challenge to you: consider the things you write and how others might react to them. We're all under the influence of neuropeptide signaling as we interact with others, and we can only make our best attempt at civility (which is unfortunately not a first-class a biological concept). I understand, and I assure you that I don't want to censor you or otherwise neuter your human experience. I have stated all of this expressly for your use. I have nothing to gain by taking the time to respond here.
Be chill. Relax. Abide. The universe is slipping all of us by far too quickly to waste time with being aggressive. Certain things just don't matter in light of that.
Hacker News is a place where people at least try to build a coherent, rational discourse. Your posts detract from that goal and these two comments of your are a net negative to the discussion.
But you already know that as you are posting from an anonymous username.
Actually, it's far easier to write one web app that can be used on smartphones, desktop systems, tablets etc., on all platforms.
Believe it or not people actually use smartphones and tablets now, and even if you hate that and use desktop for all chatting and all repository notifications and the like, some people don't, and making stand alone GUI applications isn't helping those people.
And indeed often, just making the web app is easier than getting your app to look good natively across multiple operating systems, especially now with mobile being so prominent.
It's not a desktop application. It's a browser application masquerading as a desktop application. It makes sense if you believe the desktop is dead and the browser won, which many people do.
Precisely my point. Instead of being a browser application masquerading as a desktop application, I posit that it's generally better to just write a desktop application.
Node - for node-webkit, I believe. As for the general question - why use web technologies for desktop app, I think it's like "Qt for those who don't want to use C++". Cross-platform GUI toolkit. As someone who used Qt extensively in the past I don't see a lot of value in using web technologies to develop desktop apps, unless there's a plan to use the same codebase on the real web. But it's just me.
> unless there's a plan to use the same codebase on the real web
I'm currently building a desktop application for work, and this is the reason we've got with node-webkit -- we are using the same code-base for a client side web application with slightly different uses. Being able to do so is quite a boon, to be honest, and is cutting down dev time dramatically.
Not sure why anyone interested in writing a cross-platform application would even think of Objective-C. You must be an OSX user.
Just as one example, Komanda could've been done with Python and any of the variety of cross-platform GUI toolkits available for that language. It would run everywhere, faster, using native widgets, and in a language designed for the desktop.
If I am lazy and I write in Python 2.7 are you sure you can run my code on your Python 3.4 branch without using 2to3 tool?
Are you sure all the GUI library will work on every popular platform (Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, Mac OSX 10.6+, Ubuntu 10-14, Arch, never mind all XDE, KDE, GNOME, XFCE, etc dealing with native widget???) I really don't think the development experience would be as seamlessly as you think.
Could QT be made to look as pretty? QT based apps are notoriously hard to work with on OSX, they never quite manage to fit in at all. That said I can't get this one to function at all, so it's a moot point as far as usability goes.
Replicating web-style prettified UIs seems to be one of the major goals of QML. In any case, if your alternative is an HTML/CSS/JS/Node application, I don't think replicating native look and feel is really that likely to be a sticking point.
Perhaps not, but he didn't say that. There is more than just language at play in this scenario. Will a native widget, initiated by Python, out perform JS/CSS/Node-Webkit ... maybe.
The OP saying the app will run faster is not refuted even if NodeJS runs some things faster than Python.
As for "the best client for developers" -- I'll stick with irssi, thanks.