Rebuilding our tech stack for the new facebook.com

Post by function_seven » Fri, May 08, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

starpilot wrote: post #30

raphaelj wrote: post #19

Quite sincerely, it's a total failure. I got the chance to try the new interface, and it's so slow that it's barely usable. It's even slower than the old website, that was already painfully slow. Loading a random profile takes 8 seconds. Opening a messenger discussion takes 6 seconds. It reminds me of the new Reddit website. Facebook was more enjoyable to use 12 years ago. It's really sad that in 2020, 10k+ engineers…

Comments like these remind of an old post on Slashdot, "What makes a good website?" Ask "geeks" what they prefer, it's usually minimalism, no images, consistent text styling. In the end, the ideal format becomes a text file without markup. I think we need to accept the opinions of techies are increasingly irrelevant in tech. It's like being fine artist getting paid to design flyers or a chef making burgers.

Post by the_pwner224 » Fri, May 08, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

Amezarak wrote: post #14

pathartl wrote: post #3

Great write up. Glad to see they're making some changes as the current interface still feels like 2005 with the main feed at 500px wide. And as always, dark mode is welcome. I really hope this helps performance on the site. In the past year or so I've been noticing that when the page sits in an unfocused tab for a while, clicking back usually takes 20+ seconds to actually load and I'm stuck at a white screen. It actu…

I've been using the new Facebook and the interface is even slower than before. It also feels (may not actually be) less information-dense, forcing me to interact with the page more to see the same information, compounding the problem. This is on a i7 laptop.

Post by lancesells » Fri, May 08, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

notyourwork wrote: post #32

raphaelj wrote: post #19

Quite sincerely, it's a total failure. I got the chance to try the new interface, and it's so slow that it's barely usable. It's even slower than the old website, that was already painfully slow. Loading a random profile takes 8 seconds. Opening a messenger discussion takes 6 seconds. It reminds me of the new Reddit website. Facebook was more enjoyable to use 12 years ago. It's really sad that in 2020, 10k+ engineers…

Agree whole heartedly, Facebook is a disgrace of a website and has been for years. Crazy how slow it is to load.

Post by gfodor » Fri, May 08, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

janitor61 wrote: post #36

gfodor wrote: post #4

This is 100% incidental complexity. It's painful to consider that this level of sophisticated engineering is needed to render a website quickly in 2020. What went wrong? I'm personally excited about things like turbolinks and phoenix liveview, which may provide a path out of this mess.

The frontier of web design is apparently digital Rube Goldberg machines, existing probably more for job security rather than consideration for the end-user.

Post by mellow2020 » Fri, May 08, 2020, 5:00 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #37

starpilot wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like these remind of an old post on Slashdot, "What makes a good website?" Ask "geeks" what they prefer, it's usually minimalism, no images, consistent text styling. In the end, the ideal format becomes a text file without markup. I think we need to accept the opinions of techies are increasingly irrelevant in tech. It's like being fine artist getting paid to design flyers or a chef making burgers.

Geeks prefer function over form Consumers (apparently) prefer form over function (or at least, they are more easily fooled into thinking the more form, the more function)