Hello my dudes.
My main projects over the past year were software solutions for various businesses. My model so far:
Gather relevant information for planning.
Develop a web app.
Deploy it to their network for consumption.
I chose to create solutions as web applications (even if most of the time internet connection is not required) because web development is my domain and being cross platform is important. Another point is that these are not mission-critical solutions that need to squeeze the maximum performance to operate; continuous delivery is much more valued.
So back to the question(s):
- What are some reasons to switch to a "native" desktop stack over a web based one?
- What are some good options that you can recommend based on the information above?
I could see some greenfield projects in the near future, so I'll be really appreciative for your input!
Top comments (10)
Depends on what you're after.
Hiya! I definitely agree on your points. But can you expand on a couple of them, specifically
Oh, IDK if it's just familiarity and lack of knowledge, but I definitely had an easier time
downloading Bootstrapwriting HTML and CSS in comparison with Qt (with Python bindings) or that GUI creation library in Java.With that said, C++ and Qt sounds interesting! Any particular resource you can recommend to get started?
If you're targeting Windows 10, there is exactly one API (that does not change much) waiting for you. Targeting "web browsers" will hurt you each time a new version is released.
A web browser is always running in a specialized window frame with an address bar, captured hotkeys et cetera, and HTML does not give you a full flexibility to work around that. Desktop GUIs do.
I strongly dislike Python, but Qt is rather nice. Hint: Their wiki!
Thanks a bunch! Though after an hour or so of reading up, it looks like licensing could be an issue if I ever pursue Qt. The fee is quite heavy for my liking :/
Qt is dual-licensed. I personally don't use it because I would be required to bundle a ton of DLLs because of the license.
Update: after a month of tinkering around, I found out that Java's GUI offering isn't actually that bad. Swing and JavaFX with their respective scene builders is quite nice to work with after some familiarization. Hopefully I can try it out in a real project and see how it holds up.
Have you considered electron? You can use it to build desktop applications with the web stack that you're already familiar with.
Hey thanks for the suggestion, but I'm looking for native implementations. I don't really see the improvement over my current model if I use Electron.
So, what do you mean by "native"?
desktop apps means enterprise senario. in this senario you need something that will be staple for loooong time. web apps can be affected by browser updates.
microsoft is famous of long term combatibility.
my advice : winforms.
wpf is glmore modern but diffecult to use and slower