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How is the productivity benefits from not having to press F5 after I'm updating the code is worth a few days of setting up Webpack? If I sum the time it took me

by yoavm 9y ago

How is the productivity benefits from not having to press F5 after I'm updating the code is worth a few days of setting up Webpack? If I sum the time it took me to refresh pages since I started using the internet it doesn't get to a few days.

boubiyeah 9y ago
Plus, it uses a lot of CPU/battery everytime you save in your IDE whether you're going to actually check the result or not.
- greenhatman 9y ago
  If either of those are actually problems for you then your dev environment leaves a lot to be desired. You can't be wasting cognitive load on that.
JasonSage 9y ago
This actually sounds hyperbolic to me. Are you sure that's the case?
- yoavm 9y ago
  I'm not sure. But since the average time for a webpage to load is about 3 seconds[0], I would need to press F5 17,280 times to be refreshing for a whole day. I don't think I have, and even I did, quite a few of these had nothing to do with me developing anything, so hot-reload wouldn't help here. [0] https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-fast-is-fast-enough-page-load-time-and-your-bottom-line/ https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-fast-is-fast-enough-page-lo...
- Can_Not 9y ago
  It's probably completely hyperbolic. No way it should take days unless you're trying to retrofit a legacy project and learn it at the same time.
jwdunne 9y ago
You're not counting the fact that a refresh may require developers to get back to the app state right before refresh.
- yoavm 9y ago
  Yeah, maybe. But I'm also not counting the times I worked on a hot reload enabled project and I wasn't sure if it actually reloaded or maybe there was an error somewhere that made the whole thing stop working, and so I just manually refreshed. It's just not that amazing, and it certainly not worth a few days of setting up. Would someone really start a project from scratch and then spend days on getting hot reload to work? I'd never want to hire that person honestly, nor to develop in such a fragile platform. Hot reload is nice, but there's nothing revolutionary about it that justifies more than an hour of getting things to work.
  - jwdunne 9y ago
    Oh no I agree. It's far more painful than it needs to be. I've found productivity boosts in shortening the feedback loop. A tighter feedback loop makes it easier to get into flow. But days of effort to get a simple thing working defeats the purpose. My worst days are when I look over the day and I've spent it fixing a build process - there's no flow in that. I could just bite the bullet and still get into flow albeit less smoothly but still. That's how I worked for years. I just wanted to point out it isn't as simple as eliminating a refresh. There is a gain behind that.
seanwilson 9y ago
> How is the productivity benefits from not having to press F5 after I'm updating the code is worth a few days of setting up Webpack? It doesn't take a few days, it's more like a few hours, and it's completely worth it. It makes development much less frustrating, it reduces cognitive load (no switching back and fourth between windows) and it's faster (includes not having to get the app back into the state it was in before with hot reloading). When compiling and reloading is something you're doing hundreds of times a week, a seemingly small improvement makes a huge difference to how enjoyable it is to work on a codebase which makes you more productive. I'd say the same thing about reducing a test suite run from 10 seconds to 1 second; it might only be saving you a few seconds each time but it makes you more productive because tightening the feedback loop reduces frustration which increases productivity. There's nothing worse than attempting a fix, waiting 60 seconds in anticipation it worked, seeing the same error message as last time and then having to try again for instance.
- greenhatman 9y ago
  Besides that, you don't even have to set up Webpack yourself if you're using the vue-cli app to create your boilerplate. I've never set up Webpack myself, but I'm getting all the benefits.
Tehnix 9y ago
Unless you have you entire state stored persistently across refreshes, then hot loading takes care of getting into the exact state you were in again. Make a small change -> immediately visible in the UI. Before hot reloading, make small changes -> (automatically) refresh page -> navigate to where you were, and set up the state again you were in. Hot reloading saves so much time, and means you'll check for smaller increments, because it's painless.
Can_Not 9y ago
Webpack takes zero time to setup if you use any of the popular boilerplates or standard generators.

by yoavm 9y ago

boubiyeah 9y ago

Plus, it uses a lot of CPU/battery everytime you save in your IDE whether you're going to actually check the result or not.

greenhatman 9y ago
If either of those are actually problems for you then your dev environment leaves a lot to be desired. You can't be wasting cognitive load on that.

JasonSage 9y ago

This actually sounds hyperbolic to me. Are you sure that's the case?

yoavm 9y ago
I'm not sure. But since the average time for a webpage to load is about 3 seconds[0], I would need to press F5 17,280 times to be refreshing for a whole day. I don't think I have, and even I did, quite a few of these had nothing to do with me developing anything, so hot-reload wouldn't help here. [0] https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-fast-is-fast-enough-page-load-time-and-your-bottom-line/ https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-fast-is-fast-enough-page-lo...
Can_Not 9y ago
It's probably completely hyperbolic. No way it should take days unless you're trying to retrofit a legacy project and learn it at the same time.

jwdunne 9y ago

You're not counting the fact that a refresh may require developers to get back to the app state right before refresh.

yoavm 9y ago
Yeah, maybe. But I'm also not counting the times I worked on a hot reload enabled project and I wasn't sure if it actually reloaded or maybe there was an error somewhere that made the whole thing stop working, and so I just manually refreshed. It's just not that amazing, and it certainly not worth a few days of setting up. Would someone really start a project from scratch and then spend days on getting hot reload to work? I'd never want to hire that person honestly, nor to develop in such a fragile platform. Hot reload is nice, but there's nothing revolutionary about it that justifies more than an hour of getting things to work.
- jwdunne 9y ago
  Oh no I agree. It's far more painful than it needs to be. I've found productivity boosts in shortening the feedback loop. A tighter feedback loop makes it easier to get into flow. But days of effort to get a simple thing working defeats the purpose. My worst days are when I look over the day and I've spent it fixing a build process - there's no flow in that. I could just bite the bullet and still get into flow albeit less smoothly but still. That's how I worked for years. I just wanted to point out it isn't as simple as eliminating a refresh. There is a gain behind that.

seanwilson 9y ago

> How is the productivity benefits from not having to press F5 after I'm updating the code is worth a few days of setting up Webpack? It doesn't take a few days, it's more like a few hours, and it's completely worth it. It makes development much less frustrating, it reduces cognitive load (no switching back and fourth between windows) and it's faster (includes not having to get the app back into the state it was in before with hot reloading). When compiling and reloading is something you're doing hundreds of times a week, a seemingly small improvement makes a huge difference to how enjoyable it is to work on a codebase which makes you more productive. I'd say the same thing about reducing a test suite run from 10 seconds to 1 second; it might only be saving you a few seconds each time but it makes you more productive because tightening the feedback loop reduces frustration which increases productivity. There's nothing worse than attempting a fix, waiting 60 seconds in anticipation it worked, seeing the same error message as last time and then having to try again for instance.

greenhatman 9y ago
Besides that, you don't even have to set up Webpack yourself if you're using the vue-cli app to create your boilerplate. I've never set up Webpack myself, but I'm getting all the benefits.

Tehnix 9y ago

Unless you have you entire state stored persistently across refreshes, then hot loading takes care of getting into the exact state you were in again. Make a small change -> immediately visible in the UI. Before hot reloading, make small changes -> (automatically) refresh page -> navigate to where you were, and set up the state again you were in. Hot reloading saves so much time, and means you'll check for smaller increments, because it's painless.

Can_Not 9y ago

Webpack takes zero time to setup if you use any of the popular boilerplates or standard generators.