Comment by dvfjsdhgfv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dvfjsdhgfv | Hacker News Reader

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I wouldn't say it's true, but it shows we all got trapped in a way. Let's take Mac OS development. In order to be able to publish apps, you need to have a recent version of Xcode. In order to use a recent version of Xcode, you also need to have a relatively recent version of macOS. Unfortunately, this also means your hardware need to be up to date. When you discover you can no longer develop on your 2012 machine, you buy a new one with a fast processor and plenty of RAM. (NB Even your app is so simple it could run on 3GS perfectly well, your lowest target is set at devices supporting the most recent iOS, but it's a topic for another discussion.) Now you feel the full power of your hardware and your opinion of what it means "current hardware" and "fast app" changes. You start to say things like "Come on, it's 2018, 8 GB RAM is low-end." You stop caring about these Core 2 devices because it looks like Apple doesn't care about them too, co why would you? In this way the machine is pushed forward, and we're becoming more and more wasteful.

> You start to say things like "Come on, it's 2018, 8 GB RAM is low-end."

No. Electron "developers" may say that. The vast majority of us, do not in fact say that.

I've yet to actually see any argument directly from someone involved, in favour of electron apps besides "it was just or a web app" or "it's quicker/cheaper this way".

If I throw a bucket of house paint over your Honda, that's also quicker. That doesn't mean the result is really what anyone would consider 'acceptable'.

a 2012 machine is more than acceptable as a builder, heck my mother still uses a 2009 MacBook pro and she uses her laptop quite "heavily" (She never closes programs/browser tabs), my mac pro is from 2013 and it's perfectly capable.

But, I think my pedantry does not dissuade from your actual point; making a modern MacOS program requires that you have a macOS machine- It also precludes learning a language that typically only runs on that platform (I know swift is cross platform but none of the windowing libraries that you'll use are).

Making tailored software per platform is tedious, making the same program multiple ways so that it can be native is just time consuming if nothing else.

Electron is an ugly way of fixing that; but it does the job of fixing it- Qt is an ideal solution in theory but it's obviously too much of a burden on developers to adopt.

"Precludes" means to prevent something from happening. You probably wanted something like "necessitates".

You're right, I have been living with the wrong definition of that word for quite some time now. Thanks!

> my mac pro is from 2013 and it's perfectly capable

I only hope it's from the second half of 2013: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/06/04/macos-mojave-supported-...

I built most of my current side project on a 2005 Lenovo Thinkpad T400. It runs Windows 10 just fine.

In my experience, it probably runs Windows 10 better than it originally ran Vista.

> In order to use a recent version of Xcode, you also need to have a relatively recent version of macOS. Unfortunately, this also means your hardware need to be up to date.

Eh? No it doesn't.

> When you discover you can no longer develop on your 2012 machine

The cutoff would be either 2008 or 2009 depending on line.

With MacOS 10.14 / XCode 10 now it's 2012+ models only.

> "Come on, it's 2018, 8 GB RAM is low-end."

16 GB DDR4 cost $200 now. This is not low-end, this is reaching premium levels. I got an entire mid-range smartphone for $165 last month.

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