The following is a short interview with Succinctly series author Ed Freitas, whose book Electron Succinctly was published in April. You can download the book from our ebook portal. If you would like to discuss things with Ed directly, you can reach him at edfreitas.me.
What should people know about Electron? Why is it important?
Electron is important because it’s a cross-platform desktop framework that allows developers to use their existing web development skills to create cross-platform applications that run on Windows, MacOS, and Linux. All developers need to know is how to write web apps using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and a few commands of the Electron framework to build truly cross-platform desktop apps.
When did you first become interested in Electron?
When I had to port an existing web application to the desktop and didn’t want to write it from scratch. I started to investigate how I could reuse of lot of my code and eventually ran into Electron.
By writing Electron Succinctly, did you learn anything new yourself?
Yes, many things! I learn a lot by writing books. Perhaps the most important thing I learned was that in essence you don’t really need to use a JavaScript framework when developing with Electron (although it can make a developer’s life easier) if the application is big.
How will Electron change over the next few years?
As the world becomes increasingly competitive and developers need to become increasingly aware of multiple technologies to do their jobs, it’s very important to be able to reuse as many skills as possible, which is something Electron allows developers to do. I think Electron is here to stay and I can only see GitHub (now Microsoft) adding more support for the newest web standards which will help developers reuse even more of their web development skills to build desktop applications.
Do you see Electron as part of a larger trend in software development?
Yes, a larger trend in code reusability and writing cross-platform applications with a single code base.
What other books or resources on Electron do you recommend?
I’d recommend any of the Electron courses offered by Pluralsight or Udemy. They are great resources.
What is the key piece of info that developers can take away from Electron Succinctly?
The key takeaway is that if you’re really a great web developer, now all of a sudden with Electron, you can become a great desktop developer as well. This is extremely powerful, I think.
Do you have any tips for developers trying to learn Electron?
Yes, keep an open mind and feel free to use your JavaScript framework of choice when developing with Electron, even though I didn’t use one in the book.
How long have you been working with Electron?
Around two years.
What were the biggest challenges you faced when learning Electron?
The biggest challenge was deciding which JavaScript framework to use. 🙂
How quickly can you learn a new language?
I love to learn new things, thus maybe why I can learn programming languages at a good rate—I’ll say a couple of months.
How do you stay up-to-date on industry news?
I read Hacker News, I check the GitHub trending repositories, check the latest Pluralsight courses, and read the awesome Syncfusion blog, which is always announcing the latest updates to Microsoft technologies.
Ed Freitas has been an author and technical editor for the Succinctly Series since 2016
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