alt Hacker NewsI think the real conclusion is: someone has to make a native cross-platform desktop UI framework that doesn't suck. (Yeah Qt exists, but it really sucks...) Until then, everyone will default to just using the browser for a desktop app, and the beatings will continue.
Because of this, I'm really looking forward for PanGUI to step up (https://www.pangui.io/), their UI framework is very promising and I would start using it in a heartbeat when the beta actually releases!
Replies
rubenvanwyk • today at 5:42 AM
Never heard of PanGUI - glad to see its C#, will have to try it out.
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DeathArrow • today at 8:15 AM
PanGUI seems to be interesting. However being mobile ready would matter a lot for adoption and I couldn't see anything on their sites regarding mobile platforms.
IDK, it seems like old reddit did just fine without even trying that hard. The DOM and surrounding JS API is already a high level GUI framework, and the post illustrates that it's perfectly capable of doing useful interactions >60fps. I personally love working with native code, but the modern browser is capable of producing fast interfaces that saturate human senses without it. If you write JS like a C programmer would, it will usually be quite fast, even if it's not optimal. If you write native apps in C++ like a modern JS programmer - frameworks and deps with abandon - it will be a stuttery mess.
When the DOM is not enough, there's already WebGL and WASM. A vanishingly small sliver of use cases can't saturate human senses with these tools, and the slowest, jankiest websites tend to be the least deserving of them (ie: why is jira slow? It's literally a text box with a handful of buttons on the side!).