this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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This might be a hot take but I've noticed some complicated electron apps are faster than some simple native apps. The striking example to me is how Vs code runs better and has a lower startup time than the stock Windows 11 File manager.
A well written electron app is better than a poorly written native app sometimes.
I mean, sure, but:
The Windows File Manager is really just awful in that regard. You can get alternative file managers that start up in a fraction of that time, with more features.
Startup time isn't really the worst of it. RAM usage is worse. And if a program uses lots of RAM, it will still appear quite performant. But it makes everything else on your system slower.
There's also the added CPU overhead from using JavaScript for everything to contend with.
As long as the program is not bloated, JavaScript can be fast. Unfortunately that's not the case with most programs.
especially if they're proprietary...
file manager opens instantly.
genuinely curious, I have a shitton of networked drives and at least 7 volumes on this locally, file manager has always popped open ready to go at a click or hotkey.
I don't know, man. I haven't done a scientific study on it either.
It was one of the reasons why I switched from Windows to Linux. On the same HDD, with same data, Windows file manager took half a minute to open, when the various Linux file managers were all instant.
I did 'refresh' Windows beforehand, too, which Microsoft claims is like reinstalling. Couldn't easily do a proper reinstall, because of OEM license horseshit.
These days, I only really see Windows when colleagues are using it. That's all within my company's network drive infrastructure. Maybe it is being slowed down by that.
That's still proof enough for me, though, that Windows file manager is shittily coded. A proper architecture would have the UI in a separate thread from all the file operations and it should never be the case that a slow hard drive or network drive is causing the UI to appear later.
Are you using the Windows 10 file manager? That one is so much faster than the new Windows 11 one.
TIL
Can you recommend some third party windows file managers?
Stock file manager has an okay UI (tabs are super nice) but is kinda slow, especially on battery.
I tried explorer++ but its UI is clunky and it's only slightly faster than the stock file manager.
Well, the file manager I use on Linux, Dolphin, has an experimental Windows version.
When I learned of that a few years ago, I gave it a shot on Windows and I prefered it to File Explorer, but it's not like I compared it to other offerings or anything like that.
I do think that's the best file manager on Linux and most features were working on Windows back then, so it's not unlikely either, that it is by far the best offering for Windows. But it could also be a buggy mess. I wouldn't know...
I've been using Double Commander for years and I love it, but the UI takes some getting used to (and the default settings aren't great).
That's not a compliment to Electron, that's a heck of an indictment to Microsoft messing up the File Manager.
It's legitimately hilarious to me when the creator of the OS ships web-based UI on their own operating system... Like teams on windows. Not only is it a terrible experience, slow, buggy and sluggish - it's obviously not native - on Microsoft's own OS! Where they've made all the UI APIs!
Text chat client was a solved problem 2 decades ago. Teams felt like one step forward, two steps back and the second one was more of a stumble than a step.
I mean sure once you start getting big enough, you'd probably be bundling all the features of chromium anyways, and any extra bloat is meaningless. Chromium and thus electron are extremely well optimized so if you are using the full feature set it will be fast.
But please stop using vscode as the benchmark electron app. It is not comparable. No other application in history has as large of a talent pool as vscode and It's possible none ever will either.
Yeah, VS Code is insanely optimized. No other Electron app is even going to try to reach that level.
That's because all the important bits in VSCode are reimplemented in C++
You can use C++ for web technology instead of JavaScript? I'm taking a class in C++ right now so I'd be happy to swap janky JavaScript for pedantic but speedy C++ in new projects.
VSCode is a desktop app, hence using real languages is easy. For websites there is webassembly. Try this: https://www.rust-lang.org/what/wasm
It’s getting there!
https://webassembly.org/