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Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

mohkohn.co.uk

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Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#231

Post by egeozcan »

OskarS wrote: post #165

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,…

I think the problem is hearing just one side.

Someone is saying that they delivered a very reasonable solution that's simpler than most would come up. Person taking over was not happy.

Do we know if the code being handed over was high quality? Were they reacting to the fact that it was "not React"? Maybe they have a template they enforce in the company about how apps are built?

We don't know.

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#233

Post by bearjaws »

motoboi wrote: post #132

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…

You are just describing a broken site?

I've seen static sites with these same problems, 404 was invented decades before React...

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#234

Post by CSSer »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #223
oldandboring wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Astro is something they'll have to learn on the job or hire for specifically. Before LLMs I would have agreed.

LLM + framework you don't understand goes in ... unmaintainable garbage comes out.

Before LLMs, learning on the job looked like reading documentation. Now it’s a guided tour with verification. When I produce things in this way, I’m not just blindly accepting it. The goal is that by the end of it I have learned more about the codebase and architecture, not less. I feel that’s important.

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#235

Post by bearjaws »

faangguyindia wrote: post #50

Most of my apps are now simply HTMX + Go + SQLite. I've found it's enough for most projects. One of my sites is image heavy and serves 10 TB of traffic per month. For this, I use the following setup: 1. S3 (I wanted reliable data storage) 2. In front of it, I have Cloudflare (with Tiered Cache enabled, which makes POPs prefer pulling from Cloudflare rather than the origin). I've set rules to cache everything on both…

> I wonder why there isn't a mobile OS that simply lets you build apps with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS and gives you reliable storage without all this effort.

Because there isn't a 30% walled garden you can create with that.

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#236

Post by TZubiri »

>She’s connected to the complementary WiFi and is browsing the GOV.UK pages on Housing Benefit. She’s not slicing fruit; she’s arming herself with knowledge.

>The PSP’s web browser is - charitably - pathetic. It is slow, frequently runs out of memory, and can only open 3 tabs at a time.

Alluring, an annoying property of private software development is that making websites and software in general inaccessible to lower end hardware is actually a positive effect, as it filters out 'undesirable' lower-income prospects.

That, along with pressure to produce fast, without much concern for quality (with notable privileged exceptions of luxury software like Apple or 1B+ user software like Google), as well as a disregard for sourcing "I don't care if you do it yourself, or npm install software from effectively unpaid volunteers", ends up in a state of software lacking craftmanship, software that one is not proud of to work in.

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#237

Post by andrewflnr »

StableAlkyne wrote: post #178
motoboi wrote: post #132

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…

I would argue it's not even old people. Most people do not have any understanding of what's going on when you click a button. Website either acts as expected, or it doesn't "work" If the button doesn't work, the average user is going to say "this most be broken" and then use a competitor (or contact your support). That's why it's really important to error-proof one's design (eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke…

Yeah, it's really, really not an age issue. If there's an age distinction, it's the range of people who were brought up on computers before the UI was really polished, but even then it's not consistent, and they may not have deep understanding. Kids brought up on iPads, and who aren't forced to learn by their interests or educators, have no clue.

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#238

Post by freehorse »

seangrogg wrote: post #199
OskarS wrote: post #165

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,…

As a web dev a lot of this is simply ongoing maintenance of a largely unknown quantity. Most web devs know React and use it extensively; Astro is something they'll have to learn on the job or hire for specifically. It's akin to writing a backend in Haskell. Chances are you could write something performant that leverages FP in a way that serves as a magic bullet for your domain. But now everyone after you needs to lea…

Not a web-dev myself and I was wondering if, apart from unfamiliarity with astro or HTML being treated as unknown technology, it also has to do with having to handle fallback cases, eg the 3 point validation (web component, browser default, server), esp when one is used to have react (libraries) just handling it all without any more considerations.

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#239

Post by chao- »

opem wrote: post #227
chao- wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Don't you think they have a legit skill issue here and should they be better off upskilling themselves? This is a direct effect of being a low barrier industry to enter. Most of the ppl among us are mostly here because of a good paycheck. And it SUCKS!

>Don't you think they have a legit skill issue here and should they be better off upskilling themselves?

Absolutely agree! Just because I understand how they got there doesn't mean I think it's a good state of affairs ;)

My post was already quite long, and I didn't want to append a treatise on what one should do when encountering those engineers. It depends on many details. Avoid hiring them, if that's a power you have. If you are stuck working with them, depending on your authority, encourage them to learn or force them to learn. If you're coming in to clean up after them... well, hopefully your comp is worth the annoyance.

We are all simultaneously in the position of encountering "the world as it is", understanding it, and doing what we can to improve it.

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#240

Post by 6510 »

concinds wrote: post #215
chao- wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 use to have an old pentium 2 computer for testing websites. Sometimes you cant make things fast enough for the old box. A fun trick is/was to have elm.textContent="loading images" between each "heavy" section, all targeting the same elm. If the computer, network or server is truly extremely slow you will get a nice message at the top describing what they are waiting for. On a normal slow computer you won't see the messages unless something went wrong.
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