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Some software bloat is OK

(waspdev.com)
50 points senfiaj | 3 comments | 04 Nov 25 08:27 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source
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Cthulhu_ ◴[04 Nov 25 09:51 UTC] No.45809144[source]▶
I work in enterprise, B2C software, lots of single page apps / self service portals, that kind of thing. I don't think our software is bloated per se; sure it could be faster, but for example when it comes to mobile apps, it's a tradeoff between having the best and fastest apps, being able to hire people, development speed, and non-functional requirements.

It's good enough, and for example React Native is spending years and millions in more optimizations to make their good enough faster, the work they do is well beyond my pay grade. (https://reactnative.dev/blog/2025/10/08/react-native-0.82#ex...)

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1. bombcar ◴[04 Nov 25 10:13 UTC] No.45809288[source]▶
95% of portals could be done with 2000s tech (since they're basically CRUD apps) - the question is what it is worth to make them that way.

And the answer is almost always "nothing" because "good enough" is fine.

People like to shit on development tools like Electron, but the reality is that if the app is shitty on Electron, it'd probably be just as shitty on native code, because it is possible to write good Electron apps.

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2. eviks ◴[04 Nov 25 11:15 UTC] No.45809683[source]▶
> but the reality is that if the app is shitty on Electron, it'd probably be just as shitty on native code

Right off the bat it'll save hundreds of MB in app size with a noticeable startup time drop , so no, it won't be just as shitty.

> because it is possible to write good Electron apps.

The relevant issue is the difficulty in doing that, not the mere possibility.

3. bitwize ◴[04 Nov 25 20:24 UTC] No.45815486[source]▶
When I think of good Electron apps, the first name that pops to my mind is Visual Studio Code. They really did a lot of work to make the editor responsive and capable of sophisticated things without blowing your RAM/disk budget.

But it's still bloated compared to the editor I use, Emacs.

And it's still bloated compared to a Java-based IDE of equivalent functionality. (Eclipse and IntelliJ can do much more OOTB than VS Code can.)