At this moment your platform of choice should be Electron, a stripped down web browser.

When you build an an electron project, it just opens a window.

That shows HTML text, on a web page.

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This is a desktop application, so you only host downloads.

You don’t need application servers, just servers that let people download the installer.

Because it runs on the desktop, it uses the user’s own CPU, and storage or databases.

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Programmers will always provide, stripped down browsers to serve as application platforms.

For one, they need them themselves, to build tools and editors.

The technologies within a web browser, are extremely powerful.

It makes a lot of sense to use them, instead of writing alternative stuff from scratch.

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The two projects, that you should create first.

Are the web browser, and an application operating system or visual development environment.

The web browser is simple, and will teach you a lot about minimalism and even security.

It can be a browser that removes distractions, or a browser that exposes technologies behind a web page.

That opens them up like a flower, so that user can interact with the inner-components of a web page.

Such a browser could help with securing websites, but also with simplifying them and just studying the clockwork.

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The Operating System, is all about applications that serve as tools, to create more applications.

So, when a user has a need, such as control thermostat, extract data, control drone.

They can open up your Electron based operating system or similar, and begin connecting things together.

First, to make more tools, and then make the application they need.

This allows them to rapidly develop applications, that they need in the moment, to get stuff done.

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I would recommend, that at first, when an application is made in your OS, to sell it as a stand alone application.

You just maximize its window, to hide all the tools behind it, and again just ship another electron project.

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But you can also do Code Generation, so that the tools you use in your OS, generate source code, that has a life on its own outside of your OS.

You could generate HTTP servers and services, and deploy applications networks, straight from your operating system.

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Finally, I am a fan of code generation, but we have to ask some important questions about this approach.

Why are we generating code for standard code editors, when we have a perfectly fine Visual Programming Environment.

I will leave you with a somewhat confusing example, but one that is sure to change your view of web applications.

Today, user interfaces are trees of components, that are bound to some flat data structure.

But, it you were to create a data tree, to create a user interface, you would just need nested loops to crawl the tree.

Which is to say one recursive loop, that renders the component that the branch of the tree represents.

And data, or data binding, which is to say automatic user updates are free.

Because this is not an ordinary data tree, it is a signal tree, where every branch property announces its change.

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This is such a large shift, and towards a simple editor that looks like Windows Explorer.

That you my not wish to go back to the old ways, and worry about generating code to make non-visual-programmers happy.

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As to Desktop Applications vs Web Applications, websites are convenient but expensive to run.

You have to worry about content moderation and web security, these are legal issues that can get you in trouble.

Desktop applications don’t have this problem, the user provides the CPU, and what they do is their own business.

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And I want to stress again, there is nothing to hack here, you just sell files through a secure payment gateway.

The credit card, never touches your servers, you just get a transaction ID that can’t leak secure details from those servers.

Your users are safe, your databases don’t exist, your servers never go down, Desktop Applications are still the way to go.

And browser based Desktop Application frameworks will only get better, and more powerful, as the web becomes more-profit and less-privacy oriented.

You have a beautiful future ahead of you, and with the aid of AI to instantly answer your questions it couldn't be more fun.