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Build Your Own React

pomb.us

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Re: Build Your Own React

#81

Post by jsjohnst »

spectramax wrote: post #74
musicale wrote: post #69

I really hate the layout and the annoying, distracting, animated garbage on the left side of the page. Maybe it isn't rendering properly in my browser, but I would greatly prefer a simple, wide, vertical layout.

I agree, it is simply astounding that the entire thread is filled with praising the presentation style which only gets in the way of the user. Anytime there is a need to add effects, animations, snazzy things - question ruthlessly as to why is it needed. Then after justifying it, ask again. This is what good documentation looks like: https://golang.org/pkg/ And this: https://www.mpfr.org/mpfr-current/mpfr.html

You felt so passionately that you needed to say the same thing three times? This isn’t documentation, think of it more like a slide deck or tutorial. If it’s not your cup of tea, read the source material on Github or look elsewhere for the knowledge. While I somewhat agree with you on it’s a bit overkill, harping on that point repetitively is pointless.

Re: Build Your Own React

#82

Post by spectramax »

jsjohnst wrote: post #81
spectramax wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it is simply astounding that the entire thread is filled with praising the presentation style which only gets in the way of the user. Anytime there is a need to add effects, animations, snazzy things - question ruthlessly as to why is it needed. Then after justifying it, ask again. This is what good documentation looks like: https://golang.org/pkg/ And this: https://www.mpfr.org/mpfr-current/mpfr.html

You felt so passionately that you needed to say the same thing three times? This isn’t documentation, think of it more like a slide deck or tutorial. If it’s not your cup of tea, read the source material on Github or look elsewhere for the knowledge. While I somewhat agree with you on it’s a bit overkill, harping on that point repetitively is pointless.

Documentation, presentation, etc. - fundamentally, it is presenting sequential information to the user. And yes, I will say it again, this is NOT the way to do presentations. This is the programming presentation equivalent of designer things like this: https://www.ibm.com/plex/

Absolutely dreadful. But, thanks for the insight and advice about harping on something that I feel passionate about.

Re: Build Your Own React

#83

Post by spectramax »

taude wrote: post #79
spectramax wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't perpetuate this type of animated presentation style. Why? 1) Vertical layout is easier to scroll 2) Vertical layout puts the code blocks in-line to know where they belong in the text 3) Author's presentation style has animations that slow down user's ability to scan quickly 4) Scroll position determines the code block's visibility (!!! WTF) 5) Either have the entire page white or black. The contrast chan…

I think static documentation (your link) is a different use case than an interactive tutorial (not documentation). I didn't find the presentation horrible, but it's likely just looking nice and perfect on my computer hooked up to big monitors, and not on a phone or something....

I think everyone is saying that but presentation or documentation is essentially presenting sequential information to the user, whether it is a word document, a slide deck or a scrolling html page.

Also, there is nothing interactive about it - I can't change code on the left side, nor can I do anything with the right side. It is just scrolling, I guess you can call that "interaction".

Re: Build Your Own React

#85

Post by oraphalous »

spectramax wrote: post #76
leetrout wrote: post #5

Very, very nice. His presentation library is available as well! https://codesurfer.pomb.us/ https://github.com/pomber/code-surfer/blob/code-surfer-v2/re...

Please don't perpetuate this type of animated presentation style. Why? 1) Vertical layout is easier to scroll 2) Vertical layout puts the code blocks in-line to know where they belong in the text 3) Author's presentation style has animations that slow down user's ability to scan quickly 4) Scroll position determines the code block's visibility (!!! WTF) 5) Either have the entire page white or black. The contrast chan…

I love it...

Re: Build Your Own React

#86

Post by xmprt »

spectramax wrote: post #83
taude wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think static documentation (your link) is a different use case than an interactive tutorial (not documentation). I didn't find the presentation horrible, but it's likely just looking nice and perfect on my computer hooked up to big monitors, and not on a phone or something....

I think everyone is saying that but presentation or documentation is essentially presenting sequential information to the user, whether it is a word document, a slide deck or a scrolling html page. Also, there is nothing interactive about it - I can't change code on the left side, nor can I do anything with the right side. It is just scrolling, I guess you can call that "interaction".

You're dismissing scrolling as if it doesn't do anything but when I scroll I can see the code at a point in time as opposed to a point in space.

Re: Build Your Own React

#87

Post by Silhouette »

arthurdenture wrote: post #41
thatswrong0 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm not a fan at all of react-router because it's too dependent on React. For redirecting, for example, they recommend you render a component. Which is just bananas to me.

The alternative would be to write a side effect inside your `render()` function, which is illegal -- it breaks the new Concurrent mode rendering, which can call render() speculatively. I mean, I see why it's intuitively unappealing to you, but there are perfectly good reasons for the design.

The alternative would be to write a side effect inside your `render()` function, which is illegal

That's one alternative. Another is not to try implementing behaviour that has nothing to do with rendering using a rendering library in the first place.

A horrible amount of accidental complexity has been created in the React ecosystem when people have tried to use it like a full framework. If all you have is a hammer, maybe it's time to consider using other tools as well.

Re: Build Your Own React

#88

Post by Silhouette »

marmada wrote: post #78
josephwegner wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this isn't documentation. This is a tutorial, in which progression and transitioning between steps is a fundamental part of the content. Representing that transition via animations is not inappropriate.

It looks cool, but it is inappropriate because it wastes time since the transitions take time.

Do they take more time than repeating the same 10 or 20 lines of code with slight changes every couple of paragraphs, and having the reader try to figure out what changed since the last 4 times they read almost the same code?

Re: Build Your Own React

#89

Post by spectramax »

xmprt wrote: post #86
spectramax wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone is saying that but presentation or documentation is essentially presenting sequential information to the user, whether it is a word document, a slide deck or a scrolling html page. Also, there is nothing interactive about it - I can't change code on the left side, nor can I do anything with the right side. It is just scrolling, I guess you can call that "interaction".

You're dismissing scrolling as if it doesn't do anything but when I scroll I can see the code at a point in time as opposed to a point in space.

That’s precisely the problem - if both sides were moving together, in time it would be a slide deck, in space it would be a scrolling document. Here, we have the left and right side, changing in time and space, respectively, and burdening the user with cognitive dissonance.

Re: Build Your Own React

#90

Post by Silhouette »

spectramax wrote: post #89
xmprt wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're dismissing scrolling as if it doesn't do anything but when I scroll I can see the code at a point in time as opposed to a point in space.

That’s precisely the problem - if both sides were moving together, in time it would be a slide deck, in space it would be a scrolling document. Here, we have the left and right side, changing in time and space, respectively, and burdening the user with cognitive dissonance.

if both sides were moving together, in time it would be a slide deck, in space it would be a scrolling document

There is a fundamental difference between reference material, where only the final version is relevant, and tutorial material, where the evolution is also important. You keep making similar comments in this discussion where you compare this tutorial/exposition format to typical reference documentation, but they're solving different problems and reasonable assumptions in one case don't necessarily hold in the other.

In particular, presenting this sort of tutorial/exposition material as you suggest could make the document much longer, but worse, the reader would have to keep looking at almost the same code snippet and figuring out what changed at each step instead of having it demonstrated by the animation effect. That is a significant mental overhead, and it's a recurring pain point when teaching programming subjects that can be remedied by using something that actively shows the progression. I've used similar techniques where some example code evolves with simple animations in both presentations and private documentation, and it generally seems to be effective at communicating the intended ideas and well received by the target audience.

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