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Test your product on a crappy laptop

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Re: Test your product on a crappy laptop

#41

Post by l0b0 »

There are three kinds of web developers:

- Those who don't care about performance, as long as it loads within a few seconds on their own beefed up system on the LAN. This article is for them, and we can only hope they will listen.

- Those who care about performance, and work for people who care. They are already doing great work (or are about to), producing those rare low-friction, high-speed, content-is-king sites which we all love.

- Those who care about performance, but work for people who don't. Since the developer doesn't get to decide what to work on, they can either get cracking on feature #357, work on performance on the sly at the risk of losing their job, or quit. Not much of a choice, really, unless you have some other-worldly lax schedule and minimal oversight. And don't forget, if you are allowed to work on performance the burden is on you to prove how much faster things are with your changes (which can be really hard to show conclusively) and that your N days is worth more than Bob working N days on that sexy ticket #357.

Substitute "security", "UX", or anything else you want for "performance", it works the same way.

Re: Test your product on a crappy laptop

#42

Post by scblock »

ronsor wrote: post #28
scblock wrote: post #2

"It’s also no secret that the average size of a website is huge, and it’s only going to get larger." This attitude seems common, that websites are just going to be fat and get fatter. That's a lie. Not if you, as a web developer, stop the bloat. The power is in your hands, you just need to use it. No, you don't need that 8 MB hero image. No, you don't need that bloated framework. No, you don't need those 37 tracking…

You don't need those 37 tracking libraries, but management does.

They don't need them either. Doesn't matter what they think, the truly do not need them. It's time to stop this.

Re: Test your product on a crappy laptop

#43

Post by sergiotapia »

Gigachad wrote: post #22
MattGaiser wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as a dev, I make none of those decisions.

Also as a dev, I don’t really care. It’s not my money on the line, it’s the companies. If the site sucks and users don’t like it, the company loses profits and they will be forced to change. The only thing I take a stand on is when the product is actively harmful and immoral. Just being shit or slow is not my problem.

Dangerously based response, Gigachad.

Re: Test your product on a crappy laptop

#44

Post by renewiltord »

I will if I want to target that kind of user. Personally I much prefer targeting people who have nice laptops.

Poor people are frequently low LTV customers unless you’re getting paid by someone else (say the government) and even in that case you only have to please the buyer not the user.

So maybe if I was building like payday loans or something.

Re: Test your product on a crappy laptop

#45

Post by bitwize »

nine_k wrote: post #6
scblock wrote: post #2

"It’s also no secret that the average size of a website is huge, and it’s only going to get larger." This attitude seems common, that websites are just going to be fat and get fatter. That's a lie. Not if you, as a web developer, stop the bloat. The power is in your hands, you just need to use it. No, you don't need that 8 MB hero image. No, you don't need that bloated framework. No, you don't need those 37 tracking…

The technical worker who codes up the web site and its backend does have a say, but not a lot of it. Product and sales people have a stronger say, because they optimize for the money the web site produces. Explaining them how much worse the bloat makes the site's experience for the user, showing how many pages are left partially loaded because the user did not have the patience and navigated away, how the competitor'…

This.

Asking for web sites that don't have 27 trackers, enormous hero images, a full copy of framework of the week, etc. is like asking for native games under Linux: the money isn't there to justify the added hassle and support costs.

Re: Test your product on a crappy laptop

#46

Post by everyone »

renewiltord wrote: post #44

I will if I want to target that kind of user. Personally I much prefer targeting people who have nice laptops. Poor people are frequently low LTV customers unless you’re getting paid by someone else (say the government) and even in that case you only have to please the buyer not the user. So maybe if I was building like payday loans or something.

You're obviously being facetious, but probably most HN users really do feel this way.

Re: Test your product on a crappy laptop

#49

Post by bdcravens »

dmalik wrote: post #36
kome wrote: post #14

I believe that most of the "web developers" have absolutely no idea of how to build a website using bare html+css. Actually, I worked with "web developers" that are basically not touching code much, but using all sorts of tools and framework - without fully understand what they are doing. And that's also why website looks like each other more and more. And that's the silent majority of the industry.

Websites look like each other because of Jacobs law[1]. Not sure how good the web developers you work with are if they don't understand HTML/CSS/JS. [1] https://lawsofux.com/jakobs-law/

As someone who came up during the late 90s and coded many a page in apps that were barely more than Notepad, I often have the same sentiment. (I get the same feelings about the backend and writing SQL) However, the web then was very simple. I wonder if I was a 24 year old today, trying to get a handle on all the various front-end frameworks, all the security vulnerabilities, and having to target mobile screens and giant 4k displays at the same time, if I wouldn't consider the basics low-hanging fruit to abstract away.

Re: Test your product on a crappy laptop

#50

Post by bdcravens »

kome wrote: post #14

I believe that most of the "web developers" have absolutely no idea of how to build a website using bare html+css. Actually, I worked with "web developers" that are basically not touching code much, but using all sorts of tools and framework - without fully understand what they are doing. And that's also why website looks like each other more and more. And that's the silent majority of the industry.

As I suggested in my other comment, how many backend developers don't know SQL? I would also suggest that highly skilled cabinet installers aren't always master carpenters.
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