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Comment by 8note | Hacker News Reader

how much backwards compatability do i neee nowadays?

my laptop only needs to run a few things:

browser vscode steam the microsoft drawing app some office stuff sublime discord

which all update pretty regularly.

the age of the desktop app has been replaced by the age of the browser and electron based apps. i can imagine businesses who built their own set ups back in the age of the desktop app being stuck with it, but for the most part i dont think i used windows' backwards compatability anymore

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They may update regularly but that doesn't mean they only use modern features. E.g. even just Steam itself (not just games in it) is largely still 32 bit on Windows requiring gigabytes of 32 bit compatibility files using interfaces going back decades even though Windows 11 itself doesn't have a 32 bit version anymore.

Sorry but does it mean some games can't play on windows 11 steam?

Windows has no 32bit release but 64bit Windows has everything to run 32bit software.

You can; you wouldn't be able to if you stripped your windows install of all the files that still allow 32-bit programs to run

Oh I got your point, that's why this thing exist!

A lot more than you think:

* Steam (the root process, not the subsequent Chromium child processes) is 32-bit, as are a lot of games.

* Discord is 32-bit.

How come people run these Electron apps separately when they run pretty well as tabs/windows in the browser?

Because integration into the desktop is better as an Electron app. Eg sound and video calls, keyboard shortcuts, not having to worry about finding your Discord/Slack/whatever tab

I would't say Electron is better desktop integration.

Discord for example is literally just a chrome-less Chrome; the zoom in/out hotkeys in Chrome still work in it.

This is also not mentioning how no Electron program ever visually adheres to the desktop environment it's running in.

Electron apps can use desktop capabilities. Web apps are at the mercy of the few desktop-bridging APIs that browsers inconsistently expose. They’re not talking about UI/UX “integration”.

Discord for instance has this “currently playing game X” feature. I have zero interest in broadcasting what I’m doing at the moment to the world, but many do and have this feature enabled. Good luck implementing that in a browser-confined web app.

Electron can call native OS APIs the browser can't.

An example: https://stackoverflow.com/a/39569062

> Discord for example is literally just a chrome-less Chrome; the zoom in/out hotkeys in Chrome still work in it.

No, it also includes:

* Voice (and text chat) overlay for games (DLL)

* Game integration via lobby & rich presence APIs

* Krisp noise cancellation (requires a DLL as well)

* (Better) screenshare (Chrome has an API for window sharing now but Discord's is a bit more robust with several backends in case one fails)

* System-wide keybinds

* Scripting support via gaming accessory apps (Logitech G HUB, HyperX, etc.)

It also (anecdotally) works faster than the web client, in my experience.

Just because the zoom controls work (which is an accessibility feature) doesn't mean it's a barebones Chrome wrapper.

Because a long time ago Microsoft lost a lawsuit when they tried making the web and Windows more integrated

I guess I'm one of the few who doesn't. Discord, Slack, Spotify, etc -- they're all just bookmarks for me.

Because browser's haven't built enough compatibility with the desktop to use it like a regular app, therefore severely limiting---sometimes intentionally---what you can and can't access on the file system. It is expected sometime in the near future that browsers will have enough sandbox protection that they will then enable app developers to do the same things that only Electron allows but without the excessive bloat you get from Electron versions.

I think it's because the apps have additional functionality and because the services push users to use the apps on their websites. Some of the additional functionality is artificially limited to apps as companies can put more tracking, advertising, and can ensure that people won't leave their service easily by just closing a tab.

What's the use case for needing to run steam but not individual games? Are you using desktop sharing with an ec2 instance or something?

i'd be happy to hunt DLLs for games instead of installing every damned VCredist and directx package globally.

basically a Proton/NixOS for Windows :)

Not a Windows system, but I run Steam on my Mac purely for in-home streaming from my gaming system. No games installed.

Isn't it interesting that both you and I frequently use Sublime and VS Code? Why can't VS Code kill off Sublime? It's interesting to me where a text editor like Sublime can't be a preferable IDE, but an IDE also isn't a preferable text editor?

Sublime is, well, Sublime.

Every time I try VS Code I just can’t commit. There’s a bit too much going on and it never feels as tight as Sublime.

I did just get a new Windows machine, so maybe I should try it on that.

When you are using Sublime, do you have the ability to right click somewhere and "go to definition" in a big code base?

I have the same feelings. Sublime has really good, “let me visually manipulate text through cursors” functionality. The find all, regex highlighting, and multi cursors are really nice. These features are in nearly every editor but they always feel crappy to use compared to sublime.

I’m starting to get back into emacs recently though because I like fiddling with tools more than productivity.

I've migrated to vscode from sublime. Vscode integrated debugger, lsp, etc are way ahead of sublime. That said, typing in sublime just feels good compared to vscode. I keep sublime around for quick edits.

> steam

Do you want steam to actually run any game? :D

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