Twitter to move away from Hashbangs • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter to move away from Hashbangs

#71

Post by Isofarro » Tue, Feb 21, 2012, 8:29 AM UTC

simonw wrote: post #20

mnutt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't sound like they're switching to rendering on the backend, though. So you're most likely still going to have to execute a huge chunk of javascript before displaying the page, though hopefully it will get faster.

I'm hoping that they plan to serve up the HTML and CSS for the basic page as quickly as possible, then load the JS that adds the pushState / interactive stuff asynchronously. A page with a single tweet on really shouldn't need to pull down much code. The JS can all be cached by the browser (far future expires headers etc) and there are some neat tricks you can do with app cache and localStorage to make that work even…

IIRC, Twitter brought in Steve Souders as a consultant for improving the performance of the Twitter web interface and the main recommendation he offered was to have the tweet content in the HTML page instead of loading them dynamically.

Re: Twitter to move away from Hashbangs

#72

Post by swah » Tue, Feb 21, 2012, 10:42 AM UTC

OTOH isn't this the "modern way" to develop a web app?

HTML templates + AJAX on the client and a REST/JSON API that you can reuse for iOS apps on the backend?

Re: Twitter to move away from Hashbangs

#73

Post by bad_user » Tue, Feb 21, 2012, 12:30 PM UTC

x3c wrote: post #70

ceol wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was hinted at in other comments, but when you go to http://twitter.com/#!/danwrong , what you're really doing is going to http://twitter.com/ , processing a chunk of JavaScript that looks at what's after the #!, then loading up danwrong's page. This causes issues with search engines (the server has already told the crawler everything's OK, so how do you tell it the page can't be found?) and changing URLs (if you w…

Actually, twitter should not have any google indexing problem. Search engines have provided new scheme for indexing hashbang URLs with Ajax content[1]. But, maybe, not all search engines have implemented it yet. If I had to guess, primary reason would be that server is blind as to what page needs to be loaded when you click twitter.com/#!something and an ajax request actually serves the relevant content, so it's rela…

     Search engines have provided new scheme for
     indexing hashbang URLs with Ajax content[1].

This is a myth.

First of all there is no standard and Google has no way of knowing if a website's implementation of hashbang URLs behaves in the expected manner, or not.

Then, you've got all those other issues ... with hashbangs you have no standard way of telling Google some content moved (302, 303) or is not available anymore (404).

Therefore they have to make tweaks for individual websites (akin to how Microsoft was pushing "special" fixes for various popular software running on Windows that broke on updates).

Telling people that hashbang URLs are indexed is exactly the same as telling them that Flash content is indexed ... sure it is. But unless you're too popular for Google to ignore, then get ready for a world of pain.

Re: Twitter to move away from Hashbangs

#74

Post by nkohari » Tue, Feb 21, 2012, 12:50 PM UTC

swah wrote: post #72

OTOH isn't this the "modern way" to develop a web app? HTML templates + AJAX on the client and a REST/JSON API that you can reuse for iOS apps on the backend?

I wouldn't say the re-use is specifically for iOS apps, but in general, you're right.

Re: Twitter to move away from Hashbangs

#75

Post by zerostar07 » Tue, Feb 21, 2012, 2:15 PM UTC

How about they move away from URL shorteners too?

Re: Twitter to move away from Hashbangs

#76

Post by zerostar07 » Tue, Feb 21, 2012, 2:17 PM UTC

logic wrote: post #45

MBCook wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would make sense to me. I always thought it was odd that you weren't allowed to attach a link as metadata, causing the rise of all the various URL shorteners.

The tweet still needs to fit into 140 characters, including any metadata you want visible to the recipient. Think SMS. Hence, might as well make it a user-manageable item in the tweet itself.

I wonder if we don't have the technological means to send short-urls only through SMS and real links everywhere else.

Re: Twitter to move away from Hashbangs

#77

Post by v21 » Tue, Feb 21, 2012, 2:27 PM UTC

logic wrote: post #45

MBCook wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would make sense to me. I always thought it was odd that you weren't allowed to attach a link as metadata, causing the rise of all the various URL shorteners.

The tweet still needs to fit into 140 characters, including any metadata you want visible to the recipient. Think SMS. Hence, might as well make it a user-manageable item in the tweet itself.

Not quite true -- tweets can include in_reply_to metadata, indicating the last tweet responded to, and location metadata, indicating where the tweet was sent. And of course, the account that sent the tweet is metadata, and so is the time it was sent.

And for my money, the reason they wrap every link through t.co is because this way they have analytics on every link clicked on Twitter. That sounds pretty valuable to me.

Re: Twitter to move away from Hashbangs

#78

Post by jamesgeck0 » Tue, Feb 21, 2012, 2:27 PM UTC

Smudge wrote: post #67

alexmic wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense did it break the back button? Back takes you to the previous thing you clicked correctly.

It didn't break back. It just hijacked the browser's history by adding a 2nd page load in order to inject the "!#" into the address bar. Pressing back would, as a result, act like the refresh button.

I don't follow you. Changing the functional behavior of the back button _sounds_ a lot like broken.

Re: Twitter to move away from Hashbangs

#79

Post by EdiX » Tue, Feb 21, 2012, 2:35 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #73

x3c wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, twitter should not have any google indexing problem. Search engines have provided new scheme for indexing hashbang URLs with Ajax content[1]. But, maybe, not all search engines have implemented it yet. If I had to guess, primary reason would be that server is blind as to what page needs to be loaded when you click twitter.com/#!something and an ajax request actually serves the relevant content, so it's rela…

Search engines have provided new scheme for indexing hashbang URLs with Ajax content[1]. This is a myth. First of all there is no standard and Google has no way of knowing if a website's implementation of hashbang URLs behaves in the expected manner, or not. Then, you've got all those other issues ... with hashbangs you have no standard way of telling Google some content moved (302, 303) or is not available anymore (…

    This is a myth.
    First of all there is no standard and Google has no way of knowing if a website's implementation of hashbang URLs behaves in the expected manner, or not.

https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/...

However you are probably right on everything else.

Re: Twitter to move away from Hashbangs

#80

Post by unobfuscate » Tue, Feb 21, 2012, 2:43 PM UTC

logic wrote: post #65

MBCook wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that was the original idea, but I wonder how many people in the last year or two receive tweets via SMS. If I was in charge, it's a tradeoff I'd be willing to make.

The entire world is not the United States. :) "Feature" phones and spotty data service are still very common in certain regions, but SMS works almost anywhere with cell infrastructure (or via sat phones).

But then how useful are URL's in an SMS? I would trade off a slight decrease in usability for dumbphones for increased legibility for PC/smartphones.