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Issue links now open in a popup

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Re: Issue links now open in a popup

#111

Post by bsuvc »

Matt138 wrote: post #66

This was a performance driven change. We added this as loading a cross repo issue is a much slower experience than loading an issue in the same repo due to the way the header is loaded (which is being worked on). But we hear you on the feedback - we will roll this back while we keep pushing on the root performance causes. [update - this change has been reverted and the previous behaviour is back]

> loading a cross repo issue is a much slower experience

Why not solve the real problem instead of putting in a janky workaround?

At risk of being cliche, it seems like you guys could benefit from the 5 Whys approach here: "Why is loading a cross repo issue slow?" and iterate until you discover the root cause, and fix that.

I suspect fixing the root cause is going to be a lot less glorious career-wise than implementing a UX change that is easier to tout at review time (well maybe not so much after this debacle).

Re: Issue links now open in a popup

#112

Post by geerlingguy »

BlackFingolfin wrote: post #99
ezfe wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Navigation within a repository does not reload the page, only the section below the header.

which is also driving me nuts because it frequently fails to update the issue and PR counts when I close issues or PRs. Only a hard reload, or closing the tab and opening a new new one, fixes it.

Yeah over the past six months I've trained myself to just hit Command-R every time I switch back to a GitHub issue tab, otherwise things get stale or broken far too often.

Re: Issue links now open in a popup

#114

Post by jiggawatts »

ayewo wrote: post #109
Banditoz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did the performance of GitHub become so slow in the first place? It didn't used to be this bad years ago.

Some hard numbers [1] as to why GitHub is struggling with stability issues, directly from GitHub's COO: Yup, platform activity is surging. There were 1 billion commits in 2025. Now, it's 275 million per week, on pace for 14 billion this year if growth remains linear (spoiler: it won't.) GitHub Actions has grown from 500M minutes/week in 2023 to 1B minutes/week in 2025, and now 2.1B minutes so far this week. So we're…

All of which can be handled with horizontal scaling of identical components.

None of which explains poor latency when opening UI elements, which is more likely be explained by overuse of SPA or spaghetti code in microservices.

Update: yup, that’s exactly it, just as I guessed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47912867

Re: Issue links now open in a popup

#115

Post by nchmy »

Matt138 wrote: post #84
mvdtnz wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for GitHub but I've worked on multiple nav headers for large SaaS products and they can be ridiculously heavy weight to render given they appear on every page. They tend to be a dumping ground for features, many of which require their own permissions checks, feature flag checks, etc. it's not unusual to have to perform hierarchical permissions checks. They also tend to contain contextual info about the…

Yes, pretty much this as well as some additional complexities due to the issue content being in React and the header in Rails - to the cost of approx 500-800ms p50 for a page load vs sub 100ms for a nav to an issue in the same repo (or without the header which is what we tried with this change here)

I'm curious, what causes the rails header to be so slow? They have a pretty good fragment caching story, don't they?

Re: Issue links now open in a popup

#116

Post by Banditoz »

Matt138 wrote: post #84
mvdtnz wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for GitHub but I've worked on multiple nav headers for large SaaS products and they can be ridiculously heavy weight to render given they appear on every page. They tend to be a dumping ground for features, many of which require their own permissions checks, feature flag checks, etc. it's not unusual to have to perform hierarchical permissions checks. They also tend to contain contextual info about the…

Yes, pretty much this as well as some additional complexities due to the issue content being in React and the header in Rails - to the cost of approx 500-800ms p50 for a page load vs sub 100ms for a nav to an issue in the same repo (or without the header which is what we tried with this change here)

Has the team considered going back all-in on Rails and SSR instead of this hybrid approach?

Re: Issue links now open in a popup

#117

Post by altairprime »

Banditoz wrote: post #116
Matt138 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, pretty much this as well as some additional complexities due to the issue content being in React and the header in Rails - to the cost of approx 500-800ms p50 for a page load vs sub 100ms for a nav to an issue in the same repo (or without the header which is what we tried with this change here)

Has the team considered going back all-in on Rails and SSR instead of this hybrid approach?

Have they completed the do-or-die Azure migration? I thought it had another year or something left..

Re: Issue links now open in a popup

#118

Post by dewski »

Telaneo wrote: post #40
kreyenborgi wrote: post #37

It took me a while to realize it was not a bug. Utterly insane that this went through QA.

> Utterly insane that this went through QA. Big assumption you're making there.

All new features are gated behind feature flags that progress from the developing team, to all GitHub employees, then to public over a multi-week span. Larger changes like this one have an internal discussion post shared with the company and a changelog entry once published.

Re: Issue links now open in a popup

#119

Post by dangus »

jiggawatts wrote: post #114
ayewo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some hard numbers [1] as to why GitHub is struggling with stability issues, directly from GitHub's COO: Yup, platform activity is surging. There were 1 billion commits in 2025. Now, it's 275 million per week, on pace for 14 billion this year if growth remains linear (spoiler: it won't.) GitHub Actions has grown from 500M minutes/week in 2023 to 1B minutes/week in 2025, and now 2.1B minutes so far this week. So we're…

All of which can be handled with horizontal scaling of identical components. None of which explains poor latency when opening UI elements, which is more likely be explained by overuse of SPA or spaghetti code in microservices. Update: yup, that’s exactly it, just as I guessed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47912867

This whole thread is so embarrassing for GitHub.

The idea that you would change your product design in this way as a quick fix to solve a performance problem is insane.

This would be like if the battery life on a MacBook Pro was too short so Apple fixed it by removing the screen.

Job’s done, boss!

Re: Issue links now open in a popup

#120

Post by jiggawatts »

dangus wrote: post #119
jiggawatts wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of which can be handled with horizontal scaling of identical components. None of which explains poor latency when opening UI elements, which is more likely be explained by overuse of SPA or spaghetti code in microservices. Update: yup, that’s exactly it, just as I guessed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47912867

This whole thread is so embarrassing for GitHub. The idea that you would change your product design in this way as a quick fix to solve a performance problem is insane. This would be like if the battery life on a MacBook Pro was too short so Apple fixed it by removing the screen. Job’s done, boss!

In a large enterprise if you task a front end team with solving a performance issue that is caused by the back end, invariably they’ll hack together some workaround… in the front end.

People only ever solve problems in the areas they have control over, whether that’s where the root cause is or not.

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