Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

What matters to developers is not the same as what matters to users. Users: Does it run and do the things I want and It's obvious how to access it?

PWA's are a sandboxed environment, where devs do not have control of browser version, cannot modify chromium, and cannot bundle necessary binary code. Even Spotify bundles in faster JSON parsers, and probably a number of other things.



I've given up on Electron-based apps and just use the corresponding webapp in a tab in Firefox (and if they don't offer one, I usually just do without the app). I got here because I got tired of running several extra browsers that ate up my RAM and killed performance.

An average user might not be able to connect the dots this way and realize what's going on with their machine. They'll just complain "my laptop is slow all the time and I don't know why". As developers, I feel like we have a responsibility to take better care of our users in this manner. Using a solution that will consume a GB or more of unshareable memory for something that doesn't need it (which is mostly everything) is a poor choice that puts the developer's needs (write-once-run-anywhere; faster, cheaper development time; fewer developers needed) over the user's.

So I fundamentally disagree that users only care that the app does the things they want, and nothing more.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: