Live data from Hacker News

Exception Patterns (2013)

wiki.c2.com

1–10 of 30 posts

Re: Exception Patterns (2013)

#2
I don't get the navigation pattern on the page. When I click on a link it opens a panel that I can't close, but then if I push refresh I'm taken to a page with a broken back button.

IMO: Just do a normal site where links take you to pages. Don't be creative with the UI. Maybe you could use some bog-standard wiki software?

The content itself looks very valuable, but because the UI is so bonkers, it's just too hard to use or link to.

Re: Exception Patterns (2013)

#3
post #2

I don't get the navigation pattern on the page. When I click on a link it opens a panel that I can't close, but then if I push refresh I'm taken to a page with a broken back button. IMO: Just do a normal site where links take you to pages. Don't be creative with the UI. Maybe you could use some bog-standard wiki software? The content itself looks very valuable, but because the UI is so bonkers, it's just too hard to…

Seems to work if you right click and open in a new tab. Although I do agree it's a bit of an accomplishment to break an otherwise already working browser feature. Sadly not an uncommon one.

Re: Exception Patterns (2013)

#4
post #2

I don't get the navigation pattern on the page. When I click on a link it opens a panel that I can't close, but then if I push refresh I'm taken to a page with a broken back button. IMO: Just do a normal site where links take you to pages. Don't be creative with the UI. Maybe you could use some bog-standard wiki software? The content itself looks very valuable, but because the UI is so bonkers, it's just too hard to…

> Just do a normal site

It actually used to be normal HTML... the site is the first wiki. For some reason it was reimplemented as a broken JS app.

Re: Exception Patterns (2013)

#6
post #2

I don't get the navigation pattern on the page. When I click on a link it opens a panel that I can't close, but then if I push refresh I'm taken to a page with a broken back button. IMO: Just do a normal site where links take you to pages. Don't be creative with the UI. Maybe you could use some bog-standard wiki software? The content itself looks very valuable, but because the UI is so bonkers, it's just too hard to…

Whoever designed this site spent a great deal of effort to make it behave like this.

Adding my opinion, also let the text use the page width. Limiting it to 120 characters or whatever is fine, but what this site does is really not.

Re: Exception Patterns (2013)

#7
The cool thing with all these links is that I can pick whichever one I want to talk about!

> Don't use assertions. BairsLaw applies - what will you do if the assertion fails? (Fix the bug, perhaps?) If you don't like the parameters you're given, throw an IllegalArgumentException. If you don't get a correct result, your UnitTest will tell you. There is no room left for assertions.

Disagree. How does the “law” apply? Yes, I would like to fix the bug if the assertion uncovers it… not unlike a validation error.

Assertions are only turned on in Java if `-ea`. Which means that you can fail fast for local development and maybe just log things in production.

Re: Exception Patterns (2013)

#8
post #2

I don't get the navigation pattern on the page. When I click on a link it opens a panel that I can't close, but then if I push refresh I'm taken to a page with a broken back button. IMO: Just do a normal site where links take you to pages. Don't be creative with the UI. Maybe you could use some bog-standard wiki software? The content itself looks very valuable, but because the UI is so bonkers, it's just too hard to…

> When I click on a link it opens a panel that I can't close, but then if I push refresh I'm taken to a page with a broken back button.

On mobile I just tap outside of the panel to close it. Probably on desktop it will close as well if you click outside of it?

Re: Exception Patterns (2013)

#9
post #2

I don't get the navigation pattern on the page. When I click on a link it opens a panel that I can't close, but then if I push refresh I'm taken to a page with a broken back button. IMO: Just do a normal site where links take you to pages. Don't be creative with the UI. Maybe you could use some bog-standard wiki software? The content itself looks very valuable, but because the UI is so bonkers, it's just too hard to…

I agree, this also breaks the reader feature on iOS

Re: Exception Patterns (2013)

#10
post #2

I don't get the navigation pattern on the page. When I click on a link it opens a panel that I can't close, but then if I push refresh I'm taken to a page with a broken back button. IMO: Just do a normal site where links take you to pages. Don't be creative with the UI. Maybe you could use some bog-standard wiki software? The content itself looks very valuable, but because the UI is so bonkers, it's just too hard to…

> Just do a normal site It actually used to be normal HTML... the site is the first wiki. For some reason it was reimplemented as a broken JS app.

A while ago, Ward had some sort of idea about next-level hypertext:

https://www.wired.com/2012/07/wiki-inventor/

But his implementation of it for some reason involved rewriting it as an SPA, which he entirely botched.

Post reply on HN