271–280 of 605 posts
Totally agree, gov pages should be widely accessible. Also gov services should NEVER mandate internet access. There should always be a way for tech-illiterate people to ask someone, and fill their forms
Old people. They exist. Not even that old. 60 year people can't user your fancy site because then don't have an internal model of how a computer works. You know that when pressing a button a hidden engine runs in the backend (or something runs in the backend). You expect an answer and if the expectation do not match the result, the model in your mind creates an hypothesis about what maybe happened and iterate from th…
Giving up is a wise choice: there are so many other sites to interact with. On the other side they have only one refrigerator.
"Why did the bank change the layout? I want the old one back!" - Don't like it? Change bank then. That's what I did.
I get that changing to another bank is a big unknown, but it's probably still worth it to show your displeasure. Plus her bank are morons when it comes to several other things.
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Since you're using HTMX, I have to ask: do you have any tips or idioms for composing complex forms and UI without things getting out of hand? I love the approach, but I'm having a bad time figuring out where the ideal balance is between too few or too many HTMX-replaced areas in a page. Thanks.
My #1 advice is not creating separate server endpoints for every HTMX fragment, unless you are 1000% sure that endpoint will be used in multiple different pages. Working on a "simple html page" that is actually 5 different independent "subpages" (routes, views, templates) in the backend is awful. The UX was improved, but the DX was sacrificed. I recommend having a single view function for each page/SPA and do sub-rou…
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I see no reason not to be empathetic. The frustration is fair, but it's aimed at the wrong layer. These people were guided into this spot by bootcamps and curricula that start at React and never go down the stack. My experience was the reverse. I learned HTML and CSS first, then Rails in college to serve templated pages. I understood the client/server boundary fine as a concept, what I couldn't see was where it actua…
Are you sympathetic to a doctor who specialized in surgery and now always recommends surgery, even for a common cold? Or would you say they are in the wrong job, if they are anywhere but surgery?
Crazy enough, I also hold doctors and surgeons to higher standards than web developers.
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Starting a few years ago, I realized some junior and medior engineers never once considered the possibility of building a website (app, experience, etc.) in anything other than a heavy SPA framework. But they're not stupid people! If you directly asked "Can you build a website without React?" they know the answer is obviously "Yes." However, if you asked them to build a new website, they would unthinkingly start a ne…
You are far too empathetic to them. They should not hold the jobs they have. These are the people writing React monstrosities for government benefit websites, and testing them on fast iPhones and fast 4G, without realizing that every page load for actual users will take 30 seconds on their old $200 Android on 3G, and users won’t complete the form. It’s a culture of not giving a shit, that’s the deeper issue.
I like how HTMX does SPAs. It straddles the divide nicely between simple and capable.
As a non-web dev, I have a question about this part: > There was a sad coda; as is the way of contract work, I moved on. I explained what I had built to my replacement, that it always worked even without javascript. He was appalled and said, “but that’s a lot more work for us.” Why is it more work? The approach described in the article seems honestly reasonably simple: just write the standard components for the form,…
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I see no reason not to be empathetic. The frustration is fair, but it's aimed at the wrong layer. These people were guided into this spot by bootcamps and curricula that start at React and never go down the stack. My experience was the reverse. I learned HTML and CSS first, then Rails in college to serve templated pages. I understood the client/server boundary fine as a concept, what I couldn't see was where it actua…
Are you sympathetic to a doctor who specialized in surgery and now always recommends surgery, even for a common cold? Or would you say they are in the wrong job, if they are anywhere but surgery?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see no reason not to be empathetic. The frustration is fair, but it's aimed at the wrong layer. These people were guided into this spot by bootcamps and curricula that start at React and never go down the stack. My experience was the reverse. I learned HTML and CSS first, then Rails in college to serve templated pages. I understood the client/server boundary fine as a concept, what I couldn't see was where it actua…
Are you sympathetic to a doctor who specialized in surgery and now always recommends surgery, even for a common cold? Or would you say they are in the wrong job, if they are anywhere but surgery?
FWIW, maintaining at least a moderate degree of empathy even in systemically frustrating situations is good for the empathizer and thus in one’s interest
This is the "wonder" that happens when you build for the client instead of for yourself. It takes being truly intentional: sometimes the client (especially that kind of client) does not know what he needs or want; sometimes you as a dev simply build something with good intentions but just out of habit.
Taking the time to ask true, relevant questions, and build backwards, is one of the ways you achieve this. It takes time, energy, intentionality (once again)... but it's worth it.