We love Electron. We hate Electron 😈
Hi, *|USERNAME|*!
When we think of desktop apps, web technologies don’t exactly come to mind. Instead, we may have images of C, C++, C#/.NET, Objective-C, and similar languages that desktop apps traditionally are associated with. A few years ago, something happened that changed all of this. The Electron framework was released:
Electron allowed you to build cross-platform desktop apps using web technologies, and you could do so in a way that allowed you to also call into native/OS APIs fully via JavaScript. At this point, why would you ever bother writing a native desktop app?
That’s a question many developers answered by building their desktop app experiences fully using Electron. This wasn’t isolated to small development teams strapped for resources. Some of the most popular desktop apps from some well-known companies are entirely written in Electron today such as Atom, Visual Studio Code, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Github Desktop, Whatsapp Desktop, Figma Desktop, and much more. You may even have used some of them 🐣
My most recent article What Is Electron and Why Is It So Polarizing? (direct link) goes into much greater detail on the good and bad sides of Electron. Take a look and please share/retweet if you know of anybody who is contemplating whether to build a desktop app and/or what technology stack to invest in.
TILL NEXT TIME!
As always, before I leave you to it, I would love to hear from you on things I can do better, topics you'd like me to write about, and more. Don't be shy! The easiest way to contact me is via Twitter or by posting on the forums.
Cheers,
Kirupa 😃