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Rebuilding our tech stack for the new facebook.com

engineering.fb.com

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Re: Rebuilding our tech stack for the new facebook.com

#271

Post by deadbunny »

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…

The new design is so laughably bad. I was trying to send a message to someone on the website, it took 10+ seconds to open the chat window then when typing it couldn't keep up with my typing (I'm not an especially fast typer either). It was like having a 5 second ping over SSH. This is on top of the (pinned) tab regularly needing to be closed as it slowly takes up system resources.

This is all on my 8core/32gb workstation. I can't even imagine how much utterly useless crap they are running in JS to make that kind of experience.

On the bright side it does mean I am weaning myself off as keeping a pinned tab open is a non starter so I can't just have a quick refresh. And I'll be fucked if I'm installing their apps on my phone.

So I guess thanks needs to goto the FB engineers for making their new website so utterly garbage that the tiny dopamine hits driven by the FB algorithms are worth less than the pain caused when using the site.

Re: Rebuilding our tech stack for the new facebook.com

#272

Post by runawaybottle »

3PS wrote: post #122

I'm actually really surprised by the number of comments in this thread about how the new redesign is slower. I've had it since yesterday and it genuinely feels much faster and more responsive than the old Facebook UI - though, to be fair, that's not a huge accomplishment give that the old UI would take forever to finish painting or respond to input. I'd consider it a success, especially when compared to the disaster…

Let’s go on this tangent, why is Reddit’s frontend so sluggish and lacking quality of life improvements that should be in place by now?

Surely they are hiring world-class devs, so what’s holding them back?

Re: Rebuilding our tech stack for the new facebook.com

#273

Post by SheinhardtWigCo »

5cott0 wrote: post #94
dewey wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they probably could build a nice and fast website if it was up to them. But there's probably a lot more requirements than just that. Things like https://twitter.com/wolfiechristl/status/1071473931784212480... are probably not decided on and implemented by the engineering team but are coming down as a requirement from the top. This is probably the case for a lot of other decisions that slow down the page ("We…

>Things like https://twitter.com/wolfiechristl/status/1071473931784212480... . are probably not decided on and implemented by the engineering team but are coming down as a requirement from the top. I've always suspected that the Div-itis plaguing fb's website is a result of React's dependence on the 𝚘̶𝚟̶𝚎̶𝚛̶𝚞̶𝚜̶𝚎̶ misuse of higher order components.

The extra divs are an obfuscation technique, intended to frustrate scrapers and browser extensions.

Re: Rebuilding our tech stack for the new facebook.com

#274

Post by hetspookjee »

vbezhenar wrote: post #178
3PS wrote: post #122

I'm actually really surprised by the number of comments in this thread about how the new redesign is slower. I've had it since yesterday and it genuinely feels much faster and more responsive than the old Facebook UI - though, to be fair, that's not a huge accomplishment give that the old UI would take forever to finish painting or respond to input. I'd consider it a success, especially when compared to the disaster…

Yep, works fast for me too. Random profile opens in 2-3 seconds max for me. But for some people websites are slow for some reason. I've heard complains about Gmail loading 30 seconds, while it takes 2-3 seconds cold start for me.

I don't understand how you think a 2-3 second load time is "fast" for such an enormous platform and the actual content the user sees. I sure get that Facebook is way more than that, but to think a page loading in 2-3 seconds is fast is something you could've gotten away with in 2000, but in 2020..? I genuinely don't understand why you find it quick.

Re: Rebuilding our tech stack for the new facebook.com

#275

Post by goatlover »

edhelas wrote: post #58
lancesells wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you could add Twitter and New Reddit to the list as well.

In France we have a Craiglist-like website. They recently moved to ReactJS : https://www.leboncoin.fr/ The website features didn't changed in between. It's basically a pagination + a search based on radius (so DB related) + name (so DB related) + categories (so DB related). The complete website could be build in pure HTML + CSS and a bit of JS + Ajax to refresh parts of it. But no, it's build with ReactJS, and it tak…

What's the reason for redoing a website that provides the same functionality? Why use an SPA for basic website features?

Re: Rebuilding our tech stack for the new facebook.com

#276

Post by polymorph1sm »

I opt in when Facebook prompted me to test out the new UI in Chrome browser, immediately I regretted and frustrated to find the button to revert back to the old one.

But then I found out my "old" Safari browser wasn't supported in their new fancy UI. Now I only check my Facebook once per day in Safari and never sign in again from Chrome.

Re: Rebuilding our tech stack for the new facebook.com

#278

Post by goatlover »

the_other wrote: post #231
lookdangerous wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The all-but defacto use of javascript transpilers especially invokes the image of 'Rube Goldberg' machines.

When you don’t use transpilers, you have to write ES5 code. No-one wants that.

Even in 2020? Isn't ES6 standard now across all supported browsers?

Re: Rebuilding our tech stack for the new facebook.com

#279

Post by smt88 »

andirk wrote: post #224
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already did: https://mbasic.facebook.com .

90's versions, like mbasic, of almost every website is better. More content, less noise. Mbasic could still use a flaming tag though

> 90's versions, like mbasic, of almost every website is better.

I mostly disagree and assume this is slightly hyperbolic, but I take your point. The web used to be documents, even for things that needed to be apps (like email). Now, the web is apps, even for things that should be documents.

Beyond that, the web was not the capitalist/SEO/marketer battleground that it is today, where many sites have so many costs behind them (devs, videos, etc.) that they need a boatload of ads just to try to stay in the black.

In the 90s, you could have a very popular message board with millions of pageviews a month for $30/mo.

Re: Rebuilding our tech stack for the new facebook.com

#280

Post by sktrdie »

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…

You’re missing their main goal: having an easier-to-change codebase.

Apparently this is way more economically rewarding than performance for Facebook.

With that in mind, who cares if the site is slow (btw this is the only complaint of your rant). If the software requires a few devs to change and a few eyes to maintain, they can literally scale as much as they want. And actually now they’re probably in a way better position than they would if they had developed a super performant but unmaintainable site.

The quote, premature optimization is the root of all evil, is still very much valid imho.

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