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MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform
- holaamigo 6y agoOK
- julianlam 6y agoFirst impressions: PR model via GitHub, good. That new platform schema diagram for Yari, looks complicated.
- rsstack 6y agoIt's about the level of abstraction. Kuma's "Kubernetes Cluster" is very complicated but it serves no purpose to include its details in a blog post that describes Yari. Yari's diagram is more detailed than Kuma's, while Yari itself is simpler than Kuma.
- franga2000 6y agoProbably looks complicated because of the names of all the services. In a nutshell, the data lives on GitHub, gets automatically compiled into HTML and sent to a web server. They have basically taken the rendering out of the app server and into a CI task that does it all in advance.
- tracker1 6y agoAgreed... I'm not sure what of value is really left for non-contributing users on the site. This is a similar tactic that MS has been using towards their documentation as well, so it's not so bad and for those most likely to contribute to technical documentation like this, the overlap with Github is significant enough.
- rndgermandude 6y agoAm I the only one put off by the AWS (S3+Lambda) lock-in they seem to be creating for themselves?
- rsstack 6y agoIt should only take a couple of days to switch those to a different cloud provider. When building a Jamstack website there is only very thin logic in the Lambda itself, and S3 is only used as managed file storage.
- lawwantsin17 6y agoThis is the same hand waving everyone does. There is lock in. To be sure, with developing any system.
- fallat 6y agoand GitHub...
- GoblinSlayer 6y agoAnd kubernetes, and react, and mysql. How to add something apple to the mix?
- adrianmalacoda 6y agoAre they locked into github (using their proprietary APIs) or just using it as a git backend (using standard git tooling)? It's not clear from the article.
- stu2b50 6y agoI'm pretty confident they're going to handle PRs via the github interface. I don't think they'd get many contributions if you had to email patches in.
- rndgermandude 6y agoright, tho the github lock-in is probably gonna be the least worse if they mostly rely on git itself (GH issues and PRs can be migrated to other providers or self-hosted a lot more easily than uncoupling yourself from AWS APIs and services).
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- oDot 6y agoI am a big fan of jamstack. For a lot of my client's use cases it allows me to save them a lot of money and headaches while delivering a better product, especially with a headless CMS like Netlify CMS
- whalesalad 6y agoI still don't fully grok the term. Is it a loose/blanket term sorta like 'devops' or is it a more literal prescription of actual requirements and practices?
- lukifer 6y agoIt's in a similar category as "LAMP stack" or "MEAN stack", but more vague on details: JAM = Javascript + APIs + Markup. APIs tend to perform the role of a CMS (sometimes called "headless CMS"), and Markup tends to refer to declarative templating languages rather than code. The final output is compiled into static HTML+CSS+JS, which is obviously highly performant, compared to dynamically generated PHP/RoR/etc.
- steveklabnik 6y agoMore "REST" than "JSON". There's no Jamstack spec, no checkboxes to get your Jamstack compliance score. It is a description of a particular set of patterns and practices.
- drawkbox 6y agoJamstack is essentially a client/cloud model. Instead of client/server/db it is client with CDN and apis/microservices. Jamstack is static sites/headless CMS, CDN for content/storage/speed, microservices/apis for data/auth/etc focused on speed, pre-rendering, and decoupling for easier swappable parts rather than monolith. [1] [1] https://jamstack.org/what-is-jamstack/ https://jamstack.org/what-is-jamstack/
- madeofpalk 6y agotl;dr its basically just static html/js/css sitting in an s3 bucket, rather than having an active server (that you code/manage yourself). It pushes the page rendering from runtime to build time.
- DC-3 6y agoSo they're hoping that they can replace the people they fired with open source contributors working for free.
- airstrike 6y agoIf the alternative is to close shop and let it die entirely, I don't have an issue with it It's not like they were extremely profitable and fired people to squeeze an extra buck Laying off people isn't inherently evil
- thayne 6y agoI have more of a problem with who they laid off than the fact that they laid people off. I'm probably biased as an engineer, but IMO the people who actually create your products should be the last ones to be laid off, not the first. And if the company is struggling, highly paid execs should take a pay cut before you start laying off lower-paid engineers.
- ruined 6y agohey, firing people is hard work.
- weego 6y agoIt's more the clear mismanagement of their finances on ill-considered products outside of their core offering that never go anywhere. Some of them appear to be nothing more than vanity projects that subsequently disappear having got no traction at all.
- airstrike 6y agoManaging is inherently risky –– we shouldn't expect managers to make no mistakes while at the same time expecting them to keep workers around in an unprofitable business would only serve to further harm the business Sure, one can rant all one wants about management's lack of business acumen, but that's completely separate from the issue of the layoffs
- Santosh83 6y agoGood to know that the MDN team are still working on the platform and even evolving it (hopefully for the better), despite severe layoffs. What about the content part of it? Is it the hope that the move to GitHub and PR model will encourage broader community contribution and thus make up for the sad lack of dedicated content writers?
- jannes 6y agoIt is going to be the 5th iteration of CMS/wiki software. Hopefully this is the right one. 1. Netscape DevEdge 2. MediaWiki 3. Deki Wiki (renamed to MindTouch, closed source since 2013) 4. Kuma 5. Yari There's a nice history here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/MDN_at_ten/History_of_MDN https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/MDN_at_ten/History_...
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoAnd the problem is that each time the software changes, attributions are lost. I used to be active contributor to MDN with thousands of contributions. Countless hours of volunteer work. When the platform changed and my attributions were lost, I stopped contributing. I had no street cred anymore. I was angry. The switch to GitHub means the same problem once again. Nice way to alienate your community, MDN. Good luck with that.
- wffurr 6y agoOh no, my internet points!
- nextaccountic 6y agoThose are unpaid volunteers. If Mozilla robs them attribution for work (and yes this is work), then what's left? Specially now that they fired every single paid worker.
- animal_spirits 6y agoMozilla never promised them any pay in the first place
- icebraining 6y agoIt did promise to attribute the contributions, since they are licensed under CC BY-SA.
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- duxup 6y ago"If you want to be notified when the new system is ready for testing, please let us know using this form." ---- "You need permission This form can only be viewed by users in the owner's organization." Guys....
- pianoben 6y agoReading between the lines, it seems obvious that Mozilla wishes to stop funding localization. Translations aren't even that expensive, especially relative to the cost of producing the docs in the first place. It hurts me to see MDN so starved of resources that they can't pay for even that small piece. MDN has been key to so many people's technical education. High-quality web documentation is an essential resource for those looking to elevate themselves into a technical career these days. Much of the world (20%, according to their own research) is set to lose access to this vital body of knowledge.
- dmos62 6y agoWe shouldn't discount volunteer translations. Won't the new platform support that?
- pianoben 6y agoI don't doubt that the Github-based CMS will allow for community-provided translations. I _do_ doubt that we'll see anything like the current set of languages covered at anything like the current levels of breadth and quality. Like I said in another comment, approximately nobody translates technical documentation for fun.
- bawolff 6y agoA surprising amount of mediawiki documentation is translated by volunteers (i cant speak to the quality as i dont speak nonenglish, realistically the english source material isnt that great) but volunteers do translate things
- rhizome 6y agoPerhaps interestingly, I had a frustration in the other direction just last night: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Soria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Soria https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provincia_de_Soria https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provincia_de_Soria Notice that the English page seems obviously translated by a non-native speaker, which has some implications not favorable to Mozilla's behavior here, specifically that ESL people will contribute documentation in English that native English-language speakers won't even provide for themselves.
- luhn 6y agoI'm a bit confused on the diagram for the new architecture: What's the purpose of the Lambda function? I don't see them explain that anywhere.
- davidweatherall 6y agoI would assume the lambda is to invalidate / update the cache on the pages that are being changed as new commits are merged in.
- justinlilly 6y agoFor the arrow coming from github to the cdn, I would bet that's a deployment where the existing docs site gets deployed as a lambda. From there, CDN calls that aren't cached go to the lambda which are then served up.
- anuila 6y agoIf that’s the case, why not just use GitHub Actions? It’s more integrated and requires no setup.
- johnchristopher 6y agoIs there any way to back the actual MDN ? Will the quizzes disappear in the near future ? I was planning on brushing up my html/css/js skills and I was planning on doing it through MDN.
- gambler 6y ago>We are replacing the current MDN Wiki platform with a JAMStack approach, which publishes the content managed in a GitHub repo. So... Ceding control over content to GitHub. Ceding control over uptime to Amazon. (Both done by a company that paints itself as pro-people, pro-privacy, etc.) >You will no longer be able to click Edit on a page, make and save a change, and have it show up nearly immediately on the page. You’ll also no longer be able to do your edits in a WYSIWYG editor. The fact that this is presented as some sort of improvement is pure farce.
- nine_k 6y agoFrankly, vandalizing a page becomes harder. The job of people who would have to check and approve the PRs becomes harder, too.
- icebraining 6y agoThe current Wiki is already hosted on AWS.
- madeofpalk 6y agoThis model - storing markdown files in a git(hub) repo and editing them on Github is getting more and more popular. It would be great to see Github add a more rich markdown/frontmatter editor to their interface to accomodate this.
- pietrovismara 6y agoFor what I understood it's going to be raw HTML, not markdown.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoLike Codespaces (https://github.com/features/codespaces https://github.com/features/codespaces)?
- madeofpalk 6y agoI was thinking of a more featureful markdown-based rich text editor, like you might see in a proper CMS.
- moron4hire 6y agoI don't know. Moving from a Wiki model to a GitHub PR model actually sounds worse for users. They talk about, "building a relationship with contributors". This could also be called, "building a lot of friction for contributors". With a Wiki, even non-technical users can contribute, because the editing tools are all built in. But with the PR model, now contributors need to understand HTML, CSS, Git, and GitHub PRs. I've been on GitHub for something like 10 years and I still have trouble figuring out PR workflows. Making simple edits like grammar or punctuation fixes become significantly more effort in performing the submission than in performing the edit itself. Wanting to have control over the submission process to prevent drive-by vandalism is certainly important. But that should be managed with role-based authentication and new users needing to have their edits approved by a moderator or by votes from long-term users in good standing. Once again, this sounds like the same old Mozilla line of "doing the right thing for the current user experience is too hard for our developers, so we're going to move the goalpost instead." Compared to MSDN, MDN isn't as broad, but goes a lot deeper on topics, and has much better examples. Does Microsoft wring its hands over how much running MSDN costs, to the point of considering giving it up entirely? I don't think they do. I think they know that it's important to keep developers on-platform, in-ecosystem, and they do that by offering a comprehensive learning resource. MDN is the best online resource for learning about Web technologies. I think a large part of that is because of the relatively low friction to edit. It not making Mozilla any money is completely their own fault. They could have taken that a step further and started offering training services and events. It stretches belief that you could have such a popular resource and can't figure out some sort of monetization strategy related to it. But, I guess, that's another of the same, old Mozilla lines.
- afiori 6y ago> Does Microsoft wring its hands over how much running MSDN costs Microsoft revenue stream is slightly more reliable than Mozilla's reliance on Google.
- LockAndLol 6y agoWhile one org that's serious about privacy moves to Gitlab and selfhosts everything (wikimedia), another one decides to embrace Github, Google and Amazon. Why Mozilla... why?
- xg15 6y agoSo when "retire" or "sunset" isn't enough euphemism yet, we now have "evolve"...
- anuila 6y agoWhat are you talking about? MDN is not being retired nor sunset. They’re only changing the underlying technology. It’s completely fair game.
- hellokaushik 6y agoNice
- adamretter 6y agoSo, they say that the system is evolving, but from these parts of the article I would argue that the ease of contributing (which is the important part) is taking a massive hit: > "you will no longer be able to click Edit on a page, make and save a change, and have it show up nearly immediately on the page. You’ll also no longer be able to do your edits in a WYSIWYG editor." > "you won’t have a WYSIWYG to instantly see what the page looks like as you add your content, and in addition you’ll be editing raw HTML" They had a user-friendly system previously... Now users have to learn GitHub and author raw HTML! - I would point out that not all documentation writers are developers!
- blitblitblit 6y ago> Now users have to learn GitHub and author raw HTML! Ignoring the fact Microsoft's Github has recently had DMCA insanity, a proprietary frontend, and recently enforced Webcomponents (effectively removing UXP devs who were forced to self-host Gitea just to continue working)... this seems like Mozilla is trying to outsource as much as possible from their own hosting. They also shutdown Firefox Send. Perhaps Mozilla is having issues / unable afford their own hosting anymore?
- kardos 6y ago> They also shutdown Firefox Send. IIRC it was being abused and there was no way to combat that
- thesimon 6y agoAlthough I have a hard time believing they completely overlooked it when they were designing the service. If I think of serving user-generated/uploaded content, malware and copyright violations come directly to my mind.
- tomcam 6y agoNot trying to be inflammatory here. What does it matter if Microsoft has a proprietary front end for Github when all the docs are in markdown?
- dmitriid 6y ago> Simplified back-end platform Shows two flowcharts, of which the new one is arguably more complex.
- morpheuskafka 6y ago> Better community building: At the moment, MDN content edits are published instantly, and then reverted if they are not suitable. This is really bad for community relations. With a PR model, we can review edits and provide feedback, actually having conversations with contributors, building relationships with them, and helping them learn. This is a longstanding debate in wiki/collaboratively written content, but it it interesting to note that Wikipedia and the other WMF projects have been pretty successful with the anyone can edit, revert or fix after. The review first model is used on specific pages, where it is called pending changes protection, although this is not really like a PR in that there is no comment functionality, and the standard for acceptance is lower--I don't remember the exact wording but it is closer to "this is not vandalism/not obviously wrong" rather than "I personally endorse this" much less "this is the community consensus." These edits have no special endorsement once approved and can still be changed by other editors freely. One benefit of the PR model is finality, once an issue/PR is decided no one else is supposed to open another one with virtually the same change. Wikipedia sort of has that via article talk pages, but there is of course no centralized "maintainer" to adjudicate each and every controversy. Also, many editors just don't check or even understand them.
- chaorace 6y agoI think the wiki approach works best for very diverse references, where there is no such thing as a "good enough" maintainer. You can't do Wikipedia like this, because nobody is an expert in all of human knowledge. On the other hand, MDN is probably sufficiently narrow in scope that a team of subject matter experts can competently manage contributions in a timely manner. Of course, by "narrow" I do mean basically every technology currently in use on the web, so... guess we'll see how realistic that is!
- runarberg 6y agoIn short, what you are saying is: There is a fundamental difference between an encyclopedia and technical documentation which warrants a different approach to contributions.
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- riquito 6y ago(about the comments I see here) This rethoric method of mentioning just the bad/debatable parts and completely ignore the benefits is toxic. It disregard any compromise, as if we could always achieve the ideal solution
- Rapzid 6y agoIIRC Microsoft a few years back decided to throw in with MDN as THE source for web API docs: https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-redirect-7700-msdn-pages-mozillas-mdn-web-docs-library/ https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-redirect-7700-msdn-pages-m... > Microsoft is joining Google, the W3C, and Samsung to make Mozilla’s MDN Web Docs as the single place for web API reference. Now that Microsoft is on Chromium, and THAT is also documented in MDN, and Google and Microsoft both own public cloud providers.. I feel like this move is more a step in the evolution of MDN rather than Mozilla simply sending it out to pasture.
- afiori 6y agoThis also match the focus on mass edits and tooling in the article
- z3t4 6y agoI'm working on an editor that lets you clone any repository - which uses a static site generator or the like to render static pages - where my editor lets you edit in WYSIWYG (fully rendered - what you see is what you get) - while producing clean diff's in plain HTML (or markdown), I would love to add support for editing MDN articles.