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A complete rewrite of wiki as a single page application

c2.com

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Re: A complete rewrite of wiki as a single page application

#51

Post by hnyc »

mbrock wrote: post #20

The original wiki was a wonderful community, alive in that ineffable way that very few online communities are, totally free and public. I wrote a blog post [0] about how strongly it influenced me as a person and the gratitude I feel for it. Ward Cunningham is a respected and intelligent software designer who works on open projects for the public good. The immediate cynicism and dismissal I've seen of his new project…

Because first impressions are important.

If you see a car with a small knob for a steering wheel, you'll find that it is more difficult to use. And even though the engine of the car might be a radical improvement, this still doesn't mean that it can be used, mainly due to the pesky knob instead of a steering wheel. Obviously, after a while of using a knob to steer, you can get used to it, but that initial lack of usability means that many people decide that it's not worth the trouble.

Same with the website. You go to a website to use it. Sure, the idea behind the website may be wonderful and innovative, but if the access to it is unusable, then the innovation behind it all is for naught. When implemented well, the innovation is both shown in the explanation of it, and in the interface itself.

Everybody is dismissing it after 20 seconds because it doesn't work. The idea may be good, but the implementation is what is being shown to public. If it were the idea that were being shared, then it would be a link to, for example, a blog post or source code.

Finally, the reason that we're not trying to "learn something about how it works" is because it doesn't work, at least not yet. Which is why we are complaining.

Re: A complete rewrite of wiki as a single page application

#52

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

Touche wrote: post #50
kephra wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets look, how this new wiki behaves without JS, from the viewpoint of a search engine. e.g. compare http://c2.fed.wiki.org/methodology-subsets.html with and without javascript. The new wiki is doomed by design, because content can not be found by Google or any other search engine. And a wiki where the content can not be found is for the trashcan.

Google executes JavaScript.

That can impossibly be true. JS is turing complete, turing completeness means that the halting problem is undecidable, which means that at best Google will execute JS with some random resource limit to avoid infinite resource consumption, which in turn means that whether Google will actually see the content is ultimately undefined. And even worse: other search engines might, due to lack of standardization of the available execution resources, see a different picture. That's just a braindead model for information storage and exchange.

Re: A complete rewrite of wiki as a single page application

#53

Post by Touche »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #52
Touche wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google executes JavaScript.

That can impossibly be true. JS is turing complete, turing completeness means that the halting problem is undecidable, which means that at best Google will execute JS with some random resource limit to avoid infinite resource consumption, which in turn means that whether Google will actually see the content is ultimately undefined. And even worse: other search engines might, due to lack of standardization of the avai…

I don't know what that was all about, but Google does, here's a blog post about it:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/05/understan...

And webmaster tools has a tool to verify that content is scraped correctly.

Not saying there aren't other good reasons to do server-side rendering, but SEO is not a real one.

Re: A complete rewrite of wiki as a single page application

#54

Post by learnstats2 »

mbrock wrote: post #49
learnstats2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the problem that the main page doesn't explain things clearly enough? Maybe you'd like to contribute some documentation? No. There are several problems, the first of which is that I am served content as a Javascript-dependent blank page for no good reason. I'm not sure why you think I would contribute to this project. It contradicts my ideals for the future of the web on many levels, as I already explained, and…

I think the Federated Wiki concept is very interesting, and I agree that it would be very nice to serve functioning static pages—this could be added and probably should. That's why I'm wondering if you have looked into the project's ideals and roadmap. Maybe they have different priorities than you would prefer. Maybe, as I said, they are already working on providing for your needs. This is not a product someone is se…

Here is my philosophy of Javascript, since it might be relevant here:

Javascript is great when it enhances webpages. When users get a faster and better web experience than they possibly could without it.

Javascript is awful when the fallback that remains, when it inevitably breaks, is worse than what had already existed in the past.

Re: A complete rewrite of wiki as a single page application

#56

Post by wtbob »

mbrock wrote: post #20

The original wiki was a wonderful community, alive in that ineffable way that very few online communities are, totally free and public. I wrote a blog post [0] about how strongly it influenced me as a person and the gratitude I feel for it. Ward Cunningham is a respected and intelligent software designer who works on open projects for the public good. The immediate cynicism and dismissal I've seen of his new project…

> Why not look into what he's trying to do?

I did. It's literally unusable. I.e., one literally cannot use it in lynx, w3m, Firefox with JavaScript disabled.

As far as I can tell he took 20 years of work and threw it into a garbage disposal.

Re: A complete rewrite of wiki as a single page application

#57

Post by mbrock »

hnyc wrote: post #51
mbrock wrote: post #20

The original wiki was a wonderful community, alive in that ineffable way that very few online communities are, totally free and public. I wrote a blog post [0] about how strongly it influenced me as a person and the gratitude I feel for it. Ward Cunningham is a respected and intelligent software designer who works on open projects for the public good. The immediate cynicism and dismissal I've seen of his new project…

Because first impressions are important. If you see a car with a small knob for a steering wheel, you'll find that it is more difficult to use. And even though the engine of the car might be a radical improvement, this still doesn't mean that it can be used, mainly due to the pesky knob instead of a steering wheel. Obviously, after a while of using a knob to steer, you can get used to it, but that initial lack of usa…

I have some fundamental disagreements with "first impressions are important" when it comes to public software.

First impressions are unreliable when it comes to understanding the value and potential of something that's in development.

The whole wiki spirit is to release early, adapt to feedback, and encourage collaboration.

When you say "it doesn't work" and "the innovation behind it is all for naught," I feel somewhat dejected.

Re: A complete rewrite of wiki as a single page application

#58

Post by andybak »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #42
andybak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want it recorded that this is dumb and unnecessary. But it's not that simple. Some uses of javascript genuinely add value - even to content sites. The real discussion is about cost vs benefit not "All interactivity is bad". Shades of grey, dear sir. Shades of grey...

But we do need some (I'd say, a lot) back-pressure against laziness and fashion that creates that unneccessary JavaScript. Being JS-heavy is something I found to be correlated with poor/untrustworthy content and someone trying to make money off you. I'm of course not talking about web applications here (like GMail or Google Docs) but web pages, which after all "should be text communicating a fucking message"[0]. [0]…

I don't disagree at all. I'd probably agree with the statement that most sites would be better without most of their 'enhancements'.

I just don't want the HN party line to become a knee-jerk "all js on content sites is bad".

I'm a big fan of pjax etc as it can really speed up page load without any downside (assuming it's been implemented well). If the UX is good, performance are as fast or faster as a plain HTML site, everything is bookmarkable and you don't break my back-button then go crazy.

And on the whole I actually like the new c2 wiki.

Re: A complete rewrite of wiki as a single page application

#59

Post by mbrock »

wtbob wrote: post #56
mbrock wrote: post #20

The original wiki was a wonderful community, alive in that ineffable way that very few online communities are, totally free and public. I wrote a blog post [0] about how strongly it influenced me as a person and the gratitude I feel for it. Ward Cunningham is a respected and intelligent software designer who works on open projects for the public good. The immediate cynicism and dismissal I've seen of his new project…

> Why not look into what he's trying to do? I did. It's literally unusable. I.e., one literally cannot use it in lynx, w3m, Firefox with JavaScript disabled. As far as I can tell he took 20 years of work and threw it into a garbage disposal.

It's unusable for you and at this point in time.

If you're concerned about this, have you considered opening an issue on the public repository?

Maybe you have some knowledge to share about how to make the site work well with JavaScript disabled?

Maybe you'll find that the team has thought about this, and are planning it?

A cursory look reveals an issue [0] closely related to this, mentioning that there are .html URLs that are supposed to work without JavaScript; that they have at some point verified the functionality with a screen reader; that Google should be able to index the contents; etc.

Maybe that would be a good place to bring up your concerns?

[0]: https://github.com/fedwiki/wiki-client/issues/39

Re: A complete rewrite of wiki as a single page application

#60

Post by JustSomeNobody »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #52
Touche wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google executes JavaScript.

That can impossibly be true. JS is turing complete, turing completeness means that the halting problem is undecidable, which means that at best Google will execute JS with some random resource limit to avoid infinite resource consumption, which in turn means that whether Google will actually see the content is ultimately undefined. And even worse: other search engines might, due to lack of standardization of the avai…

You're trying to be too intelligent for your own good.

Fact of the matter is the new wiki UI is horrible. It doesn't have to be spelled out any more complicated than that.

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