Those who prefer web-based interfaces can try Visual DB: https://visualdb.com/sqlite/
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The goal of this app is to provide a comfortable native GUI for SQLite, without it turning into a massive IDE-style app.
The coolest features are
- That it can handle full altering of tables, which is quite finicky to do manually with SQLite.
- It has a more detailed display of column constraints than most editors. Each constraint is shown as an icon if active, with full details available on clicking the icon.
This update also adds support for attaching databases, which is a bit fiddly with macOS sandboxing.
I'd love to hear any feedback or answer any questions.
The “thick” tool will always be more efficient than a browser-based tool. It will always be more native and integrate with the OS better. It will perform better (though that may not always be visible).
Yes I am seriously asking. The web is the worst application platform ever created, despite being maybe the only true cross-platform platform.
> The web is the worst application platform ever created
That's an extreme position. Today no one is making native Windows apps because the web has defeated native apps on Windows.
the web has defeated native apps on windows because native apps on windows are dead all on their own. not because browser applications are better, because they aren't, but because Microsoft drove those applications into the ground with clear intent.
I don't think people realize this, but browsers are SLOW. Not just a little, A LOT. Native code will always be faster, will help extend battery life, and are far simpler to write, to understand, and to support. On top of that, there are entire classes of security vulnerabilities that simply don't apply if you aren't a browser application.
Browser applications ARE convenient, though. But we previously solved that on the desktop and people forgot about it, so now it apparently is IMPOSSIBLE to click a single link and have a running application locally, despite it being easily done in the recent past. That can never happen again, apparently.
I don't expect the HN crowd to understand this. I expect the HN crowd to NOT understand this, as getting your silly startup funded requires that you not understand this simple concept. There aren't any startups making desktop applications.
I do expect technical people to understand why browser applications are bad compared to equivalently-featured native applications. But it's a faux-pas to say so anyway, because it might impact how many people give you money in the future or how much they give. People gladly trade money in exchange for ignoring inconvenient problems all day long, and without a second thought, too. Somehow, I find that anathema, despite being in the position to accept such offers several times throughout my career.
I am really starting to come around to the idea that everyone that works at Meta, Google, or at any startup writing a web application knowing that it is easier to write despite all of the horrible tradeoffs has weak moral fiber. I think those people are sellouts. I think those people know that they are creating tools that die when the company dies, require a continuous internet connection despite knowing that a constant internet connection is not feasible for a large portion of people, and create software that uses far more energy than it should despite knowing that native code is far more efficient.
Being an engineer means you face the problems you have, and you do not make up problems in order to create a business opportunity. But people forget all about their scruples when money stares them in the face.
The desktop environments that we have are constructs, and as such they can be made better. They can be remade. There can be a good cross platform environment that is easy to develop for, is relatively efficient, performant, consistent, and which allows for offline use if we just want to create that. But the money is too good if you want to ignore that problem, I guess.
In my opinion, native macOS apps used to be awesome, but when Apple switched to flat UI they removed one of the chief attractions of native apps: better look & feel.
you are pointing at a web application that is slower than a native one, and which uses more energy than a native application.
My main complaint is that everyone is avoiding the real problems because they fear that they may be too large to tackle. so, they make up other problems and solve those because they guess that solving those problems is easier. So they write web applications and mobile applications which are larger than entire operating systems like Windows XP or Windows 2000.
So hyperlinks were good but the rest was a bad design. An HTML viewer and Javascript interpreter would have just been one possible app to run in the browser.
It is a shame that, to this day, the browser can't easily handle running arbitrary applications. You're still effectively locked into JS/HTML.