People keep saying this, but they obviously have no idea. Desktop isn’t dead and nowhere near it. Just because web and mobile app developers think so doesn’t make it true.
There are several industries in which desktop applications are a must. Any application with the needs of multiple windows automatically rules out web and mobile stacks, even if they happen to work on desktops.
I would say most industries. Anything that requires creating any kind of digital content (images, videos, CAD models, electronic schematics, chip design, PCB layout, etc), most of the scientific software, all rely on the computational power and the speed of the desktop applications.
People probably refer to generic functionality like personal PIM (which boils down to webmail, Facebook products and Google products) as no longer being desktop-based.
While there are industries that still use local compute and local rendering, that is exactly what it's about: industries. You might have image and video and audio manipulation. There could be hardware control. Maybe there is 'appliance'-like functionality such as POS and vending systems. But those aren't really the mass-desktop scenario that it used to be. That is mainly 'work' usage.
There is this section that you can carve out that does still exist in the traditional form and that is gaming. But that essentially turns the 'desktop' into a gaming console.
Legacy configurations that require things like an actual mouse pointer and multiple windows (or that dreaded MDI document-window-in-a-window interface) are generally left in two categories:
1. bad implementations
2. niche implementations
The first one means investment to fix, which is generally not going to happen if there is no commercial incentive for a commercial piece of software. The second one is a niche and doesn't represent desktops in general.
Desktop dead. That would be a nightmare scenario for me as I much prefer coding desktop based apps/games compared to web things. I code web things professionally. It's where the money is. But the fun is in desktop/mobile/console apps/games.
It would be more precise to say: Desktop business apps are dead. That is almost 100% true. Some lingering ghosts still exist.
At work we are replacing a huge app which had a C# UI with a micro service based app with a React UI.
While the backed is nice, that React UI feels like crap compared to the old UI. The only reason we are using an React UI being that "it's modern".
Not every app should be an web app.
Electron has full support for multiple windows, and you can even do it with a regular browser app if you get a little creative (windows can talk directly to other windows they create, and/or all windows could talk to the same server and receive push updates via websocket)
Can you elaborate? The last time I looked into this (including a little now) showed that, yes, you can create multiple windows, but there are not good solutions for communicating between the windows. Electron's own documentation shows two, options between local storage and Electron's IPC mechanism. From what I've read, IPC is not good for more complex multiple window apps. So one needs to use a local network communication method.
And old apps written in C++ and running on a Pentium 3 will beat the crap out the Electron app which will feel sluggish even on modern hardware.
The only reason Electron exists is to enable Javascript developers do desktop apps without learning other languages and frameworks. Electron is not a solution for desktop development, it's a solution for lazy developers.
People keep saying this, but they obviously have no idea. Desktop isn’t dead and nowhere near it. Just because web and mobile app developers think so doesn’t make it true.
There are several industries in which desktop applications are a must. Any application with the needs of multiple windows automatically rules out web and mobile stacks, even if they happen to work on desktops.