3 ms·

I think Reddit could throw away all of the new stuff and be better off. Everything they’ve done after maybe 2010 could just be thrown away. An enormous waste

I think Reddit could throw away all of the new stuff and be better off. Everything they’ve done after maybe 2010 could just be thrown away. An enormous waste of programmer effort and time for something that is a lot worse than what they started with.

atomi 6y ago
> An enormous waste of programmer effort and time You've just described a whole lot of programming work.
Polylactic_acid 6y ago
Better off for the user but no doubt worse off for corporate profits. The redesign seems to be clearly better at inserting adverts and tracking the user. They also seem to be making a big effort to remove 3rd party links. These days most reddit posts are links to reddit hosted content or are news articles where no one reads the article.
rndgermandude 6y ago
The developers and designers had to justify getting paid, and they do that by producing features and a new "user experience". And if it's slow and rough, even better, job security for the foreseeable future until you fix the stuff. Throw in the second-system effect they fell for in my humble opinion, and you got your explanation of what's going on. Next up: Rinse and repeat.
- lopis 6y ago
  I mean, we're talking about a website frontend that was what, 10 years old? At this point all frontend code was probably legacy and noone in the company knew how to maintain it properly, so they started over.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    That's what happened to del.icio.us after it was bought by Yahoo. Kind of ridiculous that web code ages out that badly, but I guess in startup world as long as it lasts till the IPO or acquishutdown that's all that matters.
  - rndgermandude 6y ago
    They could have spent the time they used to produce the current mess to learn about the old code and improve on it, or document it and then use it as a starting point for their new stuff and then improve on it. 10 years isn't necessarily bad either. Just look at HN. Functional with minimum of JS, 2.0kB transferred to load this reply page, tho it will not win any fancy design awards anytime soon. But all in all, great user experience. If you wanted to inline the reply form into the comments pages, that can be done easily in under 1KB of unminified js. Loading the reddit frontpage (not signed in, adblocker): 21.8MB transferred (11.7 without media and fonts), 501 requests (183), 20+ seconds to load, 11667 ms of scripting. What the actual fuck. old.reddit.com: 2.7MB transferred (2.1MB), 100 requests (24), <2seconds to load, <300ms of scripting.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> Everything they’ve done after maybe 2010 could just be thrown away Honestly I'm pretty sure this could be said for the entirety of the web and we'd be better off.

atomi 6y ago

> An enormous waste of programmer effort and time You've just described a whole lot of programming work.

Polylactic_acid 6y ago

Better off for the user but no doubt worse off for corporate profits. The redesign seems to be clearly better at inserting adverts and tracking the user. They also seem to be making a big effort to remove 3rd party links. These days most reddit posts are links to reddit hosted content or are news articles where no one reads the article.

rndgermandude 6y ago

The developers and designers had to justify getting paid, and they do that by producing features and a new "user experience". And if it's slow and rough, even better, job security for the foreseeable future until you fix the stuff. Throw in the second-system effect they fell for in my humble opinion, and you got your explanation of what's going on. Next up: Rinse and repeat.

lopis 6y ago
I mean, we're talking about a website frontend that was what, 10 years old? At this point all frontend code was probably legacy and noone in the company knew how to maintain it properly, so they started over.
- pjc50 6y ago
  That's what happened to del.icio.us after it was bought by Yahoo. Kind of ridiculous that web code ages out that badly, but I guess in startup world as long as it lasts till the IPO or acquishutdown that's all that matters.
- rndgermandude 6y ago
  They could have spent the time they used to produce the current mess to learn about the old code and improve on it, or document it and then use it as a starting point for their new stuff and then improve on it. 10 years isn't necessarily bad either. Just look at HN. Functional with minimum of JS, 2.0kB transferred to load this reply page, tho it will not win any fancy design awards anytime soon. But all in all, great user experience. If you wanted to inline the reply form into the comments pages, that can be done easily in under 1KB of unminified js. Loading the reddit frontpage (not signed in, adblocker): 21.8MB transferred (11.7 without media and fonts), 501 requests (183), 20+ seconds to load, 11667 ms of scripting. What the actual fuck. old.reddit.com: 2.7MB transferred (2.1MB), 100 requests (24), <2seconds to load, <300ms of scripting.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

> Everything they’ve done after maybe 2010 could just be thrown away Honestly I'm pretty sure this could be said for the entirety of the web and we'd be better off.