• Arghblarg@lemmy.ca
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    14 hours ago

    Good for Mint. Someone has to keep app and lib developers honest, not hiding behind packaging every app with its special-snowflake version of every dependency. (And I’m a developer, so I know it isn’t always easy to make an app robust against upstream version changes, but ignoring the reasons something might break can cause one to overlook possible errors or invalid assumptions in one’s own code.)

    Tools to aid in mass-deployment are nice, but they shouldn’t be a crutch to hide overly-sensitive apps from their host OS’s valid version changes and updates. IMHO.

    • fhoekstra@programming.dev
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      49 minutes ago

      I understand your perspective, but i am very happy that all these isolation options exist.

      All those companies saying that developing a Linux app is too complex can just shut up and build a Flatpak.

      • Nicholas - ITSulu@mastos.online
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        45 minutes ago

        @fhoekstra @Arghblarg A #Flatpak app can be nice when you don’t have the app available in repositories or source to compile.

        If you have the app in your distribution repository, and it is up to date, it is probably better to use the distribution version as they tend to use less storage.

        • fhoekstra@programming.dev
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          32 minutes ago

          100%! Often integrates better too.

          I mostly mean from an advocate perspective, if a closed-source app developer doesnt want to build for Linux because the Linux desktop landscape is diverse and complex, you can tell them to just build a Flatpak and it will work and be installable everywhere.

          That is a path of least resistance for developers which, I think, is leading to better app availability and compatibility for the Linux desktop.