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A faster BBC News front page

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Re: A faster BBC News front page

#91

Post by wldlyinaccurate »

ezequiel-garzon wrote: post #80

React is only used on the server. We do not load it in the browser. My apologies in advance for my ignorance, as I have so far read about React, but not actually used it. Isn't the main advantage of React the virtual DOM it sets up and its reconciliation algorithm with the DOM? How can this be applied without using on the client side? Wouldn't all the responsive aspects be lost, requiring a round trip to the server f…

We've found that React is actually really great for building complex UIs out of small reusable components. I often struggle to put into words just how much better it is than, say, using Mustache templates or PHP/ERB/etc. I think it mostly comes down to how React makes component composition super-easy, and support for higher-order components makes component reuse a breeze.

Re: A faster BBC News front page

#93

Post by nailer »

DanBC wrote: post #76
nailer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if editorial thinks it matters and you think it makes things worse? Act like engineers, work out what you want, test it and get some damn data on it.

You're downvoted because you display ignorance of what it's like to work within a huge rigid bureaucracy where "just test it" mostly can't happen.

Adopting data-driven decision making requires cultural change. I understand cultural change in large organisations is difficult, you don't need to explain this.

Difficulty of changing culture is, however, no excuse. The BBC is competing with Buzzfeed who've been doing data-driven decision making since inception.

I'm fine with being downmodded by people who disagree, but it's worrying "get data on it" is being flagged on HN.

Re: A faster BBC News front page

#94

Post by DamonHD »

acdha wrote: post #79
DamonHD wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always direct. Today is the first time I've seen gzip actually happen though! If only all my other problems were so easily solved by whining! But still: sending, compressing, uncompressing stuff that definitely adds no value and would be trivial to statically omit almost all of is still a downside...

The question you should be asking is why it's there: is saving an extra nanosecond or two of easily-cached compression time really worth having to rearchitect a backend templating or content assembly system? It's not a bad thing to do but I'd be surprised if they didn't have higher priorities for their engineering staff. If you look at the trace I linked before, note that even if you could eliminate all of the time t…

Most of the work would be essentially quick and one-off: no one blinks at minifying JS or CSS and I bet that 50% of this would be entirely the same and at low dev cost.

I entirely see your point, but disagree that it's not worth doing any of it, given an almost certain quick small win + saving CPU time and bandwidth and a bit of planet while we're at it!

Re: A faster BBC News front page

#95

Post by DamonHD »

acdha wrote: post #79
DamonHD wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always direct. Today is the first time I've seen gzip actually happen though! If only all my other problems were so easily solved by whining! But still: sending, compressing, uncompressing stuff that definitely adds no value and would be trivial to statically omit almost all of is still a downside...

The question you should be asking is why it's there: is saving an extra nanosecond or two of easily-cached compression time really worth having to rearchitect a backend templating or content assembly system? It's not a bad thing to do but I'd be surprised if they didn't have higher priorities for their engineering staff. If you look at the trace I linked before, note that even if you could eliminate all of the time t…

Plus of course anything that helps get meaningful content on its way to the browser in the first (pref 2) TCP frames helps hugely. The current page header makes me cry...

Re: A faster BBC News front page

#96

Post by jonatron »

muse1864 wrote: post #69

Acknowledgements... nice bit of ass kissing there! 12 months for a single page overhaul, that's pretty costly.

I've seen worse in 'normal' companies, where managers get apathetic about fighting other layers of management so everything moves at a snail's pace.

Re: A faster BBC News front page

#97

Post by JDiculous »

zb wrote: post #46

This does feel a lot faster, but hasn't fixed my pet peeve (on bbc.com): clicking on a link to a news article and getting taken to the wrong one because the ads loaded and everything moved just as I clicked. This often happens to me 3 or 4 times in a row. Space needs to be blocked out for ads as soon as the page renders.

Just use an ad blocker, the web is insufferable without it.

Re: A faster BBC News front page

#99

Post by noir_lord »

SippinLean wrote: post #85
noir_lord wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just block it with Ublock Origin. It's intensely irritating, since it's never breaking and these days with the way the world is it is also worrying. For me Breaking News should be things like terroist attacks, massive flooding not "Back Off Contestant Falls Over".

I just realized that wasn't an ad; I've never read the text because the placement/intrusiveness triggered my ad blindness, I've blocked it with ublock as well.

Aye, I use Ublock Origin to block more than just ads.

It's also handy for the comment sections on newspapers, sections of news sites you are never gonna click/read (in my case sport) and comments on youtube.

Re: A faster BBC News front page

#100

Post by rocky1138 »

inimino wrote: post #77
malza wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of the early 2000s when websites would initiate a pop-up ad and the first thing I would do is automatically close it without looking. Thankfully browser makers stepped in and blocked them automatically. That's my hope. That news outlets will spam the feature so much that web browsers will make it easy to switch them off.

Won't happen. Pop-ups were a specific browser API and could be easily turned off without affecting anything else, banners are just content and can't be singled out by the browsers (unless by an adblock-type arms race).

Machine learning will probably be used to learn the traits of pop-up content and block it with a given confidence value.
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