It's very obvious that they've unleashed a bunch of very junior developers on front end, it's I'm surprised that it still works. The previous AJAXed implementation had its haters, but at least it was very close to bare HTML on HTTP.
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Why is GitHub UI getting slower?
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Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Were they using vanilla js? That's impressive if yes.
They were, and still very much are, using web components. But they hired a team to do experiments to imagine the future of GitHub UI, and that team built everything in React. Now that team's work is being ported to the production UI.
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Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?
#23Because Microsoft bought them.
Right after Microsoft bought them, github got better, and started implementing long-requested features. (The open letter "dear github" or whatever was that was posted right before the takeover.)
This is something more recent.
Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?
#24It's also getting a lot flakier. Around October or November of last year I realized that every week I see another bit of SPA jankiness. I lose my scroll position because some component has appeared or disappeared above view. The issues list shows hours-old state and does not refresh. A button doesn't work. A page loads but everything below the header is unstyled. I expand the build details but it collapses closed eve…
My favourite github UIUX snafu is being unable to navigate back to the root repo page when I'm in some sort of complex view, or being able to go to the authors profile in less than like 5 clicks.
Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?
#25It's very obvious that they've unleashed a bunch of very junior developers on front end, it's I'm surprised that it still works. The previous AJAXed implementation had its haters, but at least it was very close to bare HTML on HTTP.
Maybe they have given most of the development over to AI?
Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?
#26It feels very similar to Facebook UIs and everything under FB for Business (managing ads, Instagram comments, etc). Definitely because of React and the amount of client side rendering logic in general.
Which is crazy given how little interactivity and DOM state a site like GitHub actually needs to manage.
Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?
#27Githubs performance has been rapidly degrading ever since they started rewriting everything in React. It's basically impossible to view diffs now because they often fail to load, render correctly, or just are incredibly slow.
Were they using vanilla js? That's impressive if yes.
They used mostly vanilla JS for over a decade. They were early proponents of a technique they called PJAX which is actually pretty similar to how HTMX works: https://github.com/defunkt/jquery-pjax
My hunch is that over time it became harder and harder for them to hire new frontend developers who didn't insist on building everything new in React and eventually they gave up.
Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?
#28Can’t they use their AI to rewrite the entire thing to be faster?
Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?
#29Have you used any other Microsoft web services? They’re all slow and terrible
Indeed, GitHub is still lightning fast compared to Azure Dev Ops.
Which has been in Limbo since MS bought GitHub, is slow as molasses and is missing some fairly large features, yet MS also refuse to formally abandon it.
Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?
#30it felt like DNS was broken at some points because the page just wouldn't load, and sometimes just the navigation bar would load, but no content -- is this what you're talking about ?