Building a desktop application: Best practices with GitHub Electron & Atom

Web application development is usually made on client-server architecture and use a web-browser as the client interface. This is one of the reasons why web applications are so widely getting popular. Though web applications offer a slight advantage over desktop applications, there is a very narrow chance of desktop applications becoming outdated.

A desktop application means any software that can be installed on a single computer (laptop or a desktop) and used to perform specific tasks. Some desktop applications can also be used by multiple users in a networked environment.

Some advantages on building a desktop applications are:

• Avoiding the security issues and legalities associated with web based applications.

• Desktop app are independent of the Internet connectivity

• From a cost perspective, desktop app are less expensive.

Slack, wordpress, or Wire developed a desktop app using Electron and we are glad to welcome the Electron and Aton teams! Coming from San Francisco, they will give you the best practices to built desktop app using Electron & Atom.

http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/9/b/d/f/600_449439903.jpeg

Electron (http://electron.atom.io/): Build cross platform desktop apps with web technologies

Electron is a free and open source library from GitHub that allows you to build desktop apps using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It runs on Chromium, giving you a great platform for user interaction, and Node.js, providing access to things like menu bars, tray icons, and the filesystem. Michelle Tilley (https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellektilley), an engineer at GitHub, will cover the basics of Electron and demonstrate how easy it is to get started building a great desktop application.

Atom: (https://atom.io/) A hackable text editor for the 21st Century

Atom is GitHub’s free and open source text editor, built on Electron using web technologies. Its ultimate hackability provides endless customization to anyone with web development experience. Katrina Uychaco (https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrinauychaco/fr), an engineer on the Atom team, will show off Atom's power and flexibility, and maybe even share a secret or two along the way.

Join us! The event is free, totally open and in English... Accents are cute ;)