Text editor, video, audio editor, system widgets and settings, web browser, terminal emulator, git GUI client, crypto coin wallet, chat client, games, document editor, security focused software a la Keybase client.
It's unlikely that cabalamat would attempt making most of those and the others could definitely be done as a web/electron app if desired.
But probably shouldn't because we don't produce enough renewable energy yet. There's still something to be said about using TRUE native apps.
Not useless in general, just useless for me
I once wrote a Python program to compile GUIs[1] -- you input a description of the GUI as a text file and it outputs Python code that implements the GUI in Tkinter. I dusted this off for a project last year but eventually decided that making it web-based would be easier to write, look nicer, and have more functionality.
Obviously if other people find WxPython useful, good luck to them.
I'd write a web app and expose it on 127.0.0.1:someport rather than electron (which is bloated). Going down IgorPartola's list:
Text editor - I'd probably make this terminal-based using curses. Then I could easily use it on a remote server I'm ssh'd into.
video, audio editor - I've no plans/desires to write anything like these
system widgets and settings - a web app is highly suitable for editing system settings
web browser - far too big a project for me!
terminal emulator - plenty of good ones around already. I mostly use KDE's konsole.
git GUI client - I've recently been adding some git functionality to my catwiki wiki software (a web app) https://github.com/cabalamat/catwiki
crypto coin wallet - web app
chat client - web app or terminal-based
games - I've considered writing a hex-based board wargame as a web app
document editor - my catwiki wiki software is this, I suppose
security focused software a la Keybase client - the last time I wrote security software was a zero-user-interface email encryption system. If I did something like that in future, any interface would be web based
Text editor, document editor -> VS Code/Atom
terminal emulator -> Google's terminal emulator
git GUI client -> GitHub client is electron based
chat client -> slack is electron based
games -> lots of web based
From a programming perspective, modern desktop UI libraries are much more powerful and have less limitations. How you use that power is up to you and your UXD, however.
The standard desktop design paradigms were built by programmers for programmers - a lazy way to approach things leading to clunky to use software. The dog eat dog world of the web and rise of touch has forced us to turn to designers to play a huge role in simplifying interfaces and flows.
UI design and HCI has been a thing for 4+ decades.
The web is a very poor example of those things -- not to mention it has forgotten decades of research and best practices.
What it has is just ubiquity and easy access.
Agree with your opinions, though, you old fart.
NeXTSTEP was fun. Frankly, its still easier to develop for OPENSTEP 4.x then the web. VB when it first came out was amazing and all the VBX control you could buy were amazing. Heck, even the Newton was a lot cleaner to build a UI which still amazes me since Javascript should have been capable of the same type of prototype-based interface.
If the original statement was "I prefer Electron for my desktop apps over Qt/Wx/GTK/etc." I could totally understand that. But the original comment was "My 'go to GUI' is a web app". That's not the same thing. It is our modern version of "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
No. I've written GUI software, and tools for building GUI software[1], in the past.