Last time I tried building a 'blank' node-webkit app for OS X (using https://github.com/Dica-Developer/generator-node-webkit), the resulting .app came to ~100MB.
Does anyone know the base size for an atom-shell app?
Does anyone know the base size for an atom-shell app?
The alternative is not making apps self-contained, but instead to make them rely on shared libraries. This is much more efficient, but apart from a few neckbeards who cry "bloat" it seems that most people care more about avoiding dependency hell and ease of use, even if that means large packages due to library duplication.
I just launched it and timed it at 28 seconds. Then I closed it and launched it again and it took 3 seconds, so I assume there's some sort of caching going on. But basically Atom is too slow and bloated for what I need it for, which is just editing text files, CSV files, XML files etc. Sometimes I really need the multi-line cursors for a CSV though, and I'll use ST2 for that, as it seems a little snappier than Atom, although it also takes a little while to start up.
When I write code, I use Eclipse if it's Java (for work) or emacs for everything else (personal projects). I think I'm just going to install emacs on my work machine and start using it for all my text editing needs though.
You mean as a developer. Your average 'user' does not know or care how big an app 'should' be.
A significant number of users would notice an app being dramatically larger than it ought to be. I've seen a lot of reviews like "why the hell this app over 100mb??!!1". There is a huge spectrum of technical competence between "I don't have any sense of what a megabyte is" and "Developer".
Besides, does it matter much if you delete an app when it can be downloaded again in a matter of minutes?
It reminds me of Newton's third law: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."