Yes, very definitely. There has always been a need for high performance native applications. Even in the beginning of the desktop computing revolution, these questions have been asked .. and yes, there is a balance between native and cloud/browser-based computing - some of it is personal, much of it is industrial and corporate, and yet more of the spectrum where both methods are applicable exists, even still, decades later.

> is there really a need for a native programs anymore

As long as you don't give a shit about the fact that your baseline memory consumption is now 500MB instead of 25MB, and that 80% of your CPU time is wasted on running javascript through a JIT and rendering HTML instead of doing logic, no.

If you don't give a shit about your users or their time, there's indeed no longer a need to write native programs.

Where do you think Linux gamers get their Proton powered games from?

I use COM and DLLs to extend software/automate. Using Visual Studio gives me some really nice debugging options.

I did try using python and js but the variable explorer is garbage due to 'late binding'.

I thought this was just my ignorance, but I've asked experts, AI, and google searched and they unfortunately agree. That said, some people have created their own log/prints so they don't need to deal with it.