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How I made Google’s data grid scroll faster with a line of CSS

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Re: How I made Google’s data grid scroll faster with a line of CSS

#51

Post by TeMPOraL »

enlyth wrote: post #48
agent327 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe webdevelopers should stop trying to make everything look different from its defaults. It used to be that you could reliably predict what clicking the mouse in a region of the screen would do. It wasn't progress, when webdevelopers threw that out...

This seems to be a constant meme repeated in every single thread which dares to mention modern web development. I don't know if it's because the HN community is dominated by backend developers who think UIs are pointless and should be generated by code, but it's really annoying. No, we shouldn't be stuck in a rigid framework of shitty premade components with zero customizability. Modern web interfaces can be designed…

> Modern web interfaces can be designed to be user friendly, performant, and good looking.

Right. Name three examples that are all this, and still considered "good UX" by webdev standards.

> Try marketing a web app

Herein lies the real issue. And it predates the web. I recall a piece of documentation of Windows around 3.11 era, where the developers already threw their hands up in the air over realizing that, no matter how good, powerful, integrated and interoperable components they design, they can't insist on people using them, because marketers gonna market and suits will want their apps to be unique and branded and shite.

Re: How I made Google’s data grid scroll faster with a line of CSS

#52

Post by madrox »

lxe wrote: post #3

I've been doing web development for 20 years now. I don't know if it's strictly endemic to web or frontend, but I feel like we're solving the same problems over and over again, using the same low levels of abstraction. There's no reason for lists to scroll slowly after so many years of scrolling lists. There should just be one way to do a scrolling list, implemented natively and left alone. Yet, in web development, t…

If you think that’s bad, let me talk to you about backend development and the reinvention of CRUD over the same time period…

Re: How I made Google’s data grid scroll faster with a line of CSS

#53

Post by tshaddox »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #51
enlyth wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be a constant meme repeated in every single thread which dares to mention modern web development. I don't know if it's because the HN community is dominated by backend developers who think UIs are pointless and should be generated by code, but it's really annoying. No, we shouldn't be stuck in a rigid framework of shitty premade components with zero customizability. Modern web interfaces can be designed…

> Modern web interfaces can be designed to be user friendly, performant, and good looking. Right. Name three examples that are all this, and still considered "good UX" by webdev standards. > Try marketing a web app Herein lies the real issue. And it predates the web. I recall a piece of documentation of Windows around 3.11 era, where the developers already threw their hands up in the air over realizing that, no matte…

I like https://airtable.com/, https://linear.app/, and https://height.app/. They are all pushing the limits of interactive web apps, not always entirely successfully, but the overall product experience is mostly smooth and polished. I wouldn't really be able to say what it means to be "considered good UX by webdev standards," but I develop for the web and I like these three.

Re: How I made Google’s data grid scroll faster with a line of CSS

#54

Post by LudwigNagasena »

jaywalk wrote: post #8
lxe wrote: post #3

I've been doing web development for 20 years now. I don't know if it's strictly endemic to web or frontend, but I feel like we're solving the same problems over and over again, using the same low levels of abstraction. There's no reason for lists to scroll slowly after so many years of scrolling lists. There should just be one way to do a scrolling list, implemented natively and left alone. Yet, in web development, t…

> There should just be one way to do a scrolling list, implemented natively and left alone. I can't even imagine how that would work without turning into something like that can only be minimally styled and has to be (usually poorly) re-implemented to get it to look the way you want it to.

Look at Qt and its styles.

Re: How I made Google’s data grid scroll faster with a line of CSS

#55

Post by irrational »

thrashh wrote: post #45
arendtio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should just be one way to do a scrolling list, implemented natively and left alone. Maybe this one implementation should not be implemented natively? (otherwise you would need a new implementation for every platform) However, I agree with you, that in the web development we are missing a mature component library. Everybody seems to build his own library when he needs one. In addition, the libraries to connect…

I think it’s a funding issue. A lot of desktop GUI toolkits were funded by the people who created the platform themselves so they had every incentive to make it both flexible and consistent. When I look for a web component, the few component libraries that cover several different components are often extremely incomplete. Often they’re just side projects of a company or even an individual. No one is putting in the mo…

I was going to suggest Google, except... they really don't, do they? They want everyone to use their own tools/sites/etc.

Hmm, maybe Mozilla? But they've been firing all of their staff and cutting way back, so they won't do it.

Microsoft? Save reasoning as Google.

So... yeah, there probably is nobody that has the incentive to do this.

Re: How I made Google’s data grid scroll faster with a line of CSS

#56

Post by sergiotapia »

lxe wrote: post #3

I've been doing web development for 20 years now. I don't know if it's strictly endemic to web or frontend, but I feel like we're solving the same problems over and over again, using the same low levels of abstraction. There's no reason for lists to scroll slowly after so many years of scrolling lists. There should just be one way to do a scrolling list, implemented natively and left alone. Yet, in web development, t…

If you don't invent new ways to render a list how else will you be able to give a talk and get 500 twitter likes?

Re: How I made Google’s data grid scroll faster with a line of CSS

#58

Post by jitl »

irrational wrote: post #55
thrashh wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a funding issue. A lot of desktop GUI toolkits were funded by the people who created the platform themselves so they had every incentive to make it both flexible and consistent. When I look for a web component, the few component libraries that cover several different components are often extremely incomplete. Often they’re just side projects of a company or even an individual. No one is putting in the mo…

I was going to suggest Google, except... they really don't, do they? They want everyone to use their own tools/sites/etc. Hmm, maybe Mozilla? But they've been firing all of their staff and cutting way back, so they won't do it. Microsoft? Save reasoning as Google. So... yeah, there probably is nobody that has the incentive to do this.

Microsoft is building a web component framework: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/fluentui#/get-started/...

Re: How I made Google’s data grid scroll faster with a line of CSS

#59

Post by vaughan »

lxe wrote: post #3

I've been doing web development for 20 years now. I don't know if it's strictly endemic to web or frontend, but I feel like we're solving the same problems over and over again, using the same low levels of abstraction. There's no reason for lists to scroll slowly after so many years of scrolling lists. There should just be one way to do a scrolling list, implemented natively and left alone. Yet, in web development, t…

There is not one set of static requirements for lists. New UX paradigms are being invented all the time, which actually make things more usable.

E.g. Think about Airtable vs Google Sheets.

Also consider data sources and data binding. Do you bind a cell, a row, the entire table? How do you handle real-time updates or infinite scrolling. How is styling done?

It always feels like we should just standardize the current thing because we cannot see what will come next.

That said, there still does not feel like a good data grid for React, and trying to build one makes it feel like React is just getting in the way.

Re: How I made Google’s data grid scroll faster with a line of CSS

#60

Post by nitrogen »

tshaddox wrote: post #46
agent327 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe webdevelopers should stop trying to make everything look different from its defaults. It used to be that you could reliably predict what clicking the mouse in a region of the screen would do. It wasn't progress, when webdevelopers threw that out...

It's not always only about custom theming. There is a ton of functionality that is simply lacking in web standards. If you want default behavior, feel free to use an unstyled or minimally styled element. But it's not going to have any live searching or filtering, the ability to handle enormous numbers of rows and columns (as can be done with virtualization in JavaScript), draggable rows and columns, resizable columns…

So do all those things once, in the browser, and then every table can have them. That's maximally useful.
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