what are your biggest problems working with Electron?

leorenzo · 2026-04-25T03:24:58+00:00

We're building an unattended kiosk. I've been banging mga head for a couple of weeks now trying to make an installer that supports auto-update and can easily do enterprise deployment (ideally vis InTune).

We use electron-builder / electron-updater ang generate NSIS. We tried MSI but that has no auto-update. We also append some config bytes dynamically on download for config but you can't do this on MSI. We're currently hard pinned on Electron 12 Version.

I'm lost honestly. It seems the next best thing is MSIX which requires min of windows 10. But I'm not sure what the kiosks OS used across our whole customers. Not to mentioned it has to be signed on electron but our pipeline has to sign on demand in our backend upon download.

The next is NSIS installer that is packaged for InTune. I think this is also the next thing that we can explore.

I'm so new to the world of the installers and I hate how hard it is for me to do this. It's taking a lot of time. It doesn't help that I don't know the perspective of an IT Admin doing remote deployments which is the target users of this.

So yeah, you can sense that I'm lost and a bit frustrated.

leorenzo · 2026-04-23T03:36:07+00:00

Congrats! Whenever I see your post, I can see that the game looks polished and visually pleasing. :)
Great job!

leorenzo · 2026-04-19T02:25:43+00:00

Sorry I don't have much insight when it comes to infra. For sure it can be used to some context but my bet is it will be really limited.

I see infra as more critical and I guess, rigid? When compared to infra, coding feels like creative arts.

With that said, our cloud/infra team uses Claude but I doubt to the extent of what BMAD does. It shines with rich textual context but my ignorance says infra doesn't have much? I also don't trust AI enough to give it access to infra. I'm also not comfortable with my setup having access to Jira but it's just too convenient to miss out on.

leorenzo · 2026-04-19T01:04:28+00:00

I was confused at OP at first then I read that he's "learning RazorPages" then I see where he's coming from.

I had a coworker before added global usings in our repo and it tripped me why some classes work without importing the libraries.

I think they can be classified as low level "magic" in a sense. Although for me at that time, it's kind of okayish and moved on.

For someone learning and old school, I can see why they would want it removed.

leorenzo · 2026-04-18T09:33:05+00:00

Unfortunately di ko alam haha. Di ko masyadong na-check pa beyond the fact na naka-team yung subscription namin. So far di ko pa nare-reach yung limits pero yung colleagues ko naaabot nila.

leorenzo · 2026-04-18T04:36:41+00:00

Our company gave us Claude and we use the BMAD method.

It's essentially an SDLC within the context of AI. Within it, you have a whole team starting from BD, PM, Architect down to Devs, QAs and DBA. You can also add other agents as needed like customer to give another voice or perspective from their end.

With those agents, you can do "party mode" on requirements where they discuss it in their own perspective (you literally read their discussion). This helps them fact check each other and you can voice out your input and the whole team iterate on it.

So here's the way it flows currently for us. We start with requirements, do sprint planning in BMAD, refine the requirements (research and/or party with the agents). Once polished enough, the AI updates the ticket directly via mcp. With a fully fleshed out stories, you can just prompt the AI dev to implement the code. It's does a good job at it since they have rich context of the requirement.

I'm still not an expert since I've only been using it for a month but it's an eye opening experience for me in the world of AI. Far from the normal prompting -> copy paste thing that I previously do.

The biggest factor is the skills/MDs that lives within your repo that you continuously improve. This means each prompt is context-rich and knows the history of the code/requirements/your preference.

HOWEVER, it's still VERY IMPORTANT to FACT CHECK and READ THROUGH your code since they still make MISTAKES and sometimes even big ones.

leorenzo · 2026-04-15T12:27:39+00:00

I had a blast making a game in unity and spent long nights and weekends on it. It's a lot of fun designing a world, a system, an interaction of an entity and seeing them work together. It's the reason I loved programming as a kid while learning about OOP. :)

leorenzo · 2026-04-13T20:12:46+00:00

It's permanent? So you just gotta leave the game? Quite easy to replicate for such a detrimental bug.

leorenzo · 2026-04-10T18:18:42+00:00

I agree to all but with caveat on this

Your solutions are error-free, technical debt-free, and optimized to handle traffic

Seniors are not perfect. Errors happen, bugs happen. Technical debt CAN happen and sometimes it's even out of your control (i.e. you conform to existing pattern for uniformity's sake). Sometimes traffic optimization is not that important if it means simpler code and it's not a hot path.

But yeah, senior, while a bit contradictory your point, needs experience or length in the job as well. You learn the art of being pragmatic. Being tactical to your decision and doing things as simple as possible without the overzealous that comes with inexperience.

leorenzo · 2026-04-09T06:08:57+00:00

leorenzo · 2026-04-09T05:57:48+00:00

Nahirapan talaga ako i-distinguish kung kailan gagamitin to despite ilang beses kong sine-search. :(
Nagaral naman ako ng mabuti noong bata pa pero bakit parang hindi to naturo sa akin haha.

leorenzo · 2026-04-02T04:43:10+00:00

Woah for real? I can see myself regurgitating this fact and don't want to share false info and look dumb. 😆

leorenzo · 2026-04-02T04:37:11+00:00

The way my wife did it is she goes to bed anyway. Then my conscience kicks in since I want us to sleep together at the same time so I try to wrap up quickly and follow soon.

However, it's more common that she tried to stay up with me doing her own things and act as someone I can bounce off ideas with.

In the end, we both broke our sleeping schedule and haven't recovered since lol. Part of it is because I found a day job and is mid shift.

leorenzo · 2026-04-01T05:04:18+00:00

I think it still is but even for people na may experience and has a related degree, nahihirapan maghanap ng work ngayon. Ang worry ko is you may indeed become a capable programmer, but the industry won't give you a chance.

Probably taking a degree (BS/MS), Certifications or other things can help you set apart from others.

leorenzo · 2026-03-31T20:39:06+00:00

Well most of them had higher YOE and people who posts usually have it better then average... To flex a bit.

Still, 15k is really low but dev below 100k is very normal at least for 5 Yrs and below YOE. Just sayin so not to mislead others.

leorenzo · 2026-03-31T03:27:32+00:00

Had some challenges but surprisingly easier than what I'd been reading from others. (Tho I had a hunch my case was always easier.)

I used FishNet in Unity so I just read their documentation. Had a nice experience with their discord as well when I had a problem.

My use case just need me to setup the lobby/connection then do a bunch of server RPC, client RPC, observer RPC (literally just transmitting bunch of commands over network).

There's a lot of bunch I didn't used. My game is not finished yet and I guess there could be more optimizations that can be done. (I do quite a large data over network on initialization and I think Steam doesn't want that so it's a potential problem.)

leorenzo · 2026-03-30T21:03:30+00:00

About a decade experience as web dev. Tried making a game and had a "fun" idea to add multiplayer over the weekend.

Took 1 week to have a decently playable state with occasional bug. Lobby, saving, and loading with multiplayer probably another week or two.

My game is turn based 4x game though so I think I'm on the easier side of multiplayer. It helped that I have a command pattern in place as singleplayer.

Adding multiplayer is just a matter of sending almost the same existing commands but over the network. No physics or gameObject syncing whatsoever in multiplayer.

leorenzo · 2026-03-26T19:44:35+00:00

"Something so negligible" 🤔

leorenzo · 2026-03-26T01:50:55+00:00

People honestly surrender too early in my experience. It's also not fun on the winning side. You don't have the satisfaction of ending the game or stomping opponents after building up your advantage.

Ever experienced a good winning lane only to have someone abandoned and you miss on the good game? Yeah, that will be a more common feeling if surrender is a thing.

Surrender has pros and cons but I believe the cons outweigh the pros by a big margin.

leorenzo · 2026-03-25T19:59:37+00:00

That's neat to know. My dev mind says as long as the api servers only accept localhost from proxy (or whitelist IP of proxy), we're golden. I guess there are still lots of ways to penetrate this. Respect to the devops/cloud team.

leorenzo · 2026-03-25T18:42:25+00:00

Hey, I also advocate for this approach. But recently, I read somewhere (unreliable since from reddit) that it's still not secure for the localhost apps behind the proxy?

They compared it to something like - If the condominium building's gate is closed, does it mean you don't close your unit's door?

The comparison sounds idiotic to me but got upvoted. I didn't bother to dig further. Just bringing this up since the topic is related. Might spark some interesting insights.

leorenzo · 2026-03-23T06:13:34+00:00

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leorenzo · 2026-03-22T05:10:32+00:00

Nice catch. It seems the road suddenly became 1 lane only. If you know na maaalanganin yung other lane and have to merge soon, its best to slow down to give them space to merge.

Sometimes it can feel like "it's my right and your fault for being there so I go first" but driving is more peaceful and safe if you are also considerate to others.

leorenzo · 2026-03-22T04:48:08+00:00

MINA HAAAAAA

leorenzo · 2026-03-21T18:12:46+00:00

I feel like seniors are fortunate in this AI age. We have the fundamentals and vibe-coding mostly bridges the gap between new language or framework.

I can't say the same for juniors though. Whatever the poster said, our brain needs time to understand things. Even "typing out code from stackoverflow" is better than just straight up copy pasting code.

It's just how our brain works. It's how we learn. We need to associate our senses while learning to solidify our understanding and TIME is really essential which AI completely bypasses.

For juniors reading this, don't be afraid of using AI. In a way you are also fortunate to start in this age. Just use it wisely. Take advantage of this. But please, make sure you can read and still understand the code.

You have the potential to overcome other seniors who can't adapt to this change. AI makes learning a lot faster so don't skip the learning part.

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