Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

mohkohn.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 605 posts

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

#331

Post by swiftcoder »

whstl wrote: post #154
swiftcoder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is patently untrue, give a craftsman terrible tools, and they'll still produce a decent end result. That said, defaults matter, and astro is going to be significantly more friendly out-of-the-box to low-end clients

> give a craftsman terrible tools, and they'll still produce a decent end result This is an absurd statement. Just because something is a proverb, doesn't mean it's automatically true for all cases.

> Just because something is a proverb, doesn't mean it's automatically true for all cases.

A professional woodcarver armed with only a metal spoon will still make a nicer woodcarving than I can given a full wood shop. Similarly, if you only give me notepad.exe, I can still make a pretty nice website.

Does using the right tools make our lives easier? For sure. Using mildly-wrong tools (react, in this case) isn't going to hold us back very much though.

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

#333

Post by JackFr »

reaperducer wrote: post #297
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…

A few of them would outright not know how to do anything else. It's like how a lot of people these days reach for an electric drill/driver for even the most simple projects like tightening a screw. It never occurs to them to use a screwdriver, or even a butter knife.

Try to get a Java developer to do something without Spring.

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

#334

Post by motoboi »

frayed0654 wrote: post #310
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…

This describes all non-technical users, not just "old people."

Yes, but even non-technical users have a different relationship that formed over the young (neural plasticity) days.

"I click the button on this form, nothing happens. Given that I have an internalized notion of forms as a multistep flow, maybe it couldn't advance because something is missing on the current step? Maybe it will give me those messages below or above the form? Maybe some read message somewhere? I'll search for those and try again"

vs

"I click the button on this form, nothing happens. Not sure what would happen next. Maybe the thing will tell me? I can't see no dialogs, no messages, no error screen. Nothing changed. Maybe if I press it again? Nothing? Hum, maybe is disconnected from the network? It's the wifi again? Maybe if I power cycle the wifi router it will reconnect? I click next again now I get a clear error message: no internet connection. I suppose my internet is broken again. Will call my tech-savvy friend."

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

#335

Post by oulipo2 »

alok-g wrote: post #318
oulipo2 wrote: post #59

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

>> There should always be a way for tech-illiterate people to ask someone, and fill their forms Isn't that more open to fraud and abuse though by the "someone" whether that is a gov employee or otherwise.

If it's a government employee (as it should), it shouldn't be open to fraud and abuse, no. There should be a trail of what happened

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

#336

Post by motoboi »

Hard_Space wrote: post #162
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…

> 60 year people can't user your fancy site because then don't have an internal model of how a computer works. I think this is a bit outdated. I'll be 60 in a month, and have been practicing and writing about machine learning, for money, for a straight 10 years now; and I was a young man (and a full stack developer) during the digital revolution. If anything, GenX had to work harder to get into these brittle emerging…

Some people know how to fix a fridge.

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

#337

Post by motoboi »

bearjaws wrote: post #233
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...

Yeah. And reflect on the fact that you know that a 404 error is not a form error. Old people won't. Heck then won't understand that a chrome error page is not your site.

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

#338

Post by 6510 »

repelsteeltje wrote: post #305
6510 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using it to understand a framework is fine.

I agree that's fine in that at least it's doesn't cause unmaintainable garbage. And might even get you up to speed quicker that reading the docs old school. But the GP point, that you're better off finding people that already, truly understand and are familiar with the tech (ie. Astro), imo still stands.

We cant all be wise enough to use php.

I read a fun comment the other day from a frustrated windows user who failed to configure linux in previous attempts but now with LLMs it was very easy for him.

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

#339

Post by Rendello »

jppope wrote: post #248
kkkqkqkqkqlqlql wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like chai tea.

- shrimp scampi - Old Adage - chai tea - Naan Bread - Rio Grande River - Lake Tahoe - PIN/ VIN number - ATM machine - GPS system - Panini sandwich

- Hill Hill Hill (Hill):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUyXiiIGDTo

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

#340

Post by dang »

wmanley wrote: post #25

The counterargument: In Defence of the Single Page Application: https://williamkennedy.ninja/javascript/2022/05/03/in-defenc...

Discussed at the time:

In Defence of the Single Page Application - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31275178 - May 2022 (32 comments)

Post reply on HN