Figma approaches design from an engineer's perspective. They have features like auto layout [0], swapping elements in a list, scaling multiple elements at once while preserving each aspect ratio, and so on.
Can you imagine that if designers before this wanted to move an element in a list, they would have to move every single one instead of having some drag and drop swap functionality? That if they wanted to dynamically change a button size for the text inside it, like we can do easily on the web, they simply couldn't?
Basically, Figma is turning design more into something like front-end development, doing things in a design program that engineers could do normally with code. This is because the developers of Figma are themselves coders rather than designers, so they know what real ease of use should look like (ironically). This is the fundamental corporate culture shift that is the difference between Figma and others like Sketch.
Of course, you could go all the way and simply turn the design software into a web/mobile development framework, which is what software like Framer [1] does, which is literally a design software built on React, and it can spit out React code for you once you're done designing.
Framer doesn't spit out React code once you're done. Code used in prototyping is hugely different and unusable in production. And Framer makers know this and openly talk about this, they're not trying to be a code generator.
Well, I've found it pretty useful to hand animation in js as-is for specific patterns (as we actually handle the specific bezier curve animation, timings, etc...)
Sure you may not use the components wholesale but you can still pick out specific parts, such as full CSS code or bezier curves as the sibling poster put it.
Figma approaches design from an investors point of view.
Like most other web-SaaS tools, they aren't browser based because its better for the user. They sacrifice speed, native functionality, and usability for owning via server-side control over your wallet on a subscription plan.
The startup market in no-longer customer driven. It is investor thesis driven.
That is an odd way to put it if you had read the article. It notes that precisely because Figma was on the web that it was able to have collaboration features, have linkability to specific Figma files, and other such features, and thus serve the customer. As well, I am not sure how they sacrifice speed or usability exactly, when they even use Rust compiled to WASM in order to create the entire UI.
I can concede that SaaS can be, in many cases, be merely investor driven, but I cannot concede that Figma is one of those. Even being investor driven, such as having a subscription business plan, is not bad for the customer per se, as a sustainable business is better than a dead one. Software costs money to make, and more importantly, to upkeep and add features too. I am not sure how you can expect one time fees, especially for enterprise software like Figma is (personal plans are free), in this day and age.
Can you imagine that if designers before this wanted to move an element in a list, they would have to move every single one instead of having some drag and drop swap functionality? That if they wanted to dynamically change a button size for the text inside it, like we can do easily on the web, they simply couldn't?
Basically, Figma is turning design more into something like front-end development, doing things in a design program that engineers could do normally with code. This is because the developers of Figma are themselves coders rather than designers, so they know what real ease of use should look like (ironically). This is the fundamental corporate culture shift that is the difference between Figma and others like Sketch.
Of course, you could go all the way and simply turn the design software into a web/mobile development framework, which is what software like Framer [1] does, which is literally a design software built on React, and it can spit out React code for you once you're done designing.
[0] https://www.figma.com/blog/announcing-auto-layout/
[1] https://www.framer.com/