5 ms·

Besides applying security patches, what exactly has needed to be changed in the HN codebase over the last 14 years? Featurewise, it's been essentially static fo

Besides applying security patches, what exactly has needed to be changed in the HN codebase over the last 14 years? Featurewise, it's been essentially static for its whole existence (which is a large part of its appeal to many, including myself).

xeromal 5y ago
If the number of users has grown over the last 14 years, I'm sure some of the code areas have needed to be tuned over 14 years as well.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jolmg 5y ago
I think I've noticed changes a few times. For example, - the relative timestamps would go up to days, so you'd see e.g. "3121 days ago", and now they're replaced with dates at some point. - we're now able to escape * in comments. It used to be impossible (?) to use asterisks with consecutive characters, so you'd either have to put spaces around it or substitute with something like <asterisk>. This was unfortunate for inline code. - code blocks no longer scroll horizontally and wrap instead. This is my favorite change because many code blocks were actually indented bullet paragraphs. - the "past" link in the navbar was added - the subthread collapse link [-] used to use a - (ASCII 0x2d) and now it uses – (Unicode U+2013). This is my least favorite change because I used to use that for keyboard navigation. It was pretty convenient to Ctrl+F [- <Enter>... to navigate between comments then <Esc> <Enter> to collapse a thread and Ctrl+F <Enter>... to keep navigating. These are relatively recent changes.
- viraptor 5y ago
  There's also the "second chance" list (few months ago?)
  - jolmg 5y ago
    This one, right? https://news.ycombinator.com/pool https://news.ycombinator.com/pool Doesn't seem to be linked anywhere, though. I wonder if there are other pages like that.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Izkata 5y ago
      In the footer is "Lists", which goes here and includes that: https://news.ycombinator.com/lists https://news.ycombinator.com/lists Others have added more here in 2009 that aren't in either place: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1024293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1024293
- j1elo 5y ago
  > the subthread collapse link [...] is my least favorite change because [...] To each their own, but yours was to me a fun practical example of that famous xkcd strip called "workflows" that is sometimes linked in HN, about how every possible change is seemingly always able to break someone's way of using your product :)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- pritambaral 5y ago
  > the subthread collapse link [-] used to use a - (ASCII 0x2d) and now it uses – (Unicode U+2013). This is my least favorite change because I used to use that for keyboard navigation. Hasn't been a problem for me (my browser (Firefox on Linux) matches ASCII dashes against en dashes and em dashes too), but you could try using a Compose key shortcut? On Linux at least, the Compose key shortcuts[1] for en dash and em dash are easy: minus-minus-period and minus-minus-minus respectively. 1: https://fsymbols.com/keyboard/linux/compose/ https://fsymbols.com/keyboard/linux/compose/
  - jolmg 5y ago
    > Hasn't been a problem for me (my browser (Firefox on Linux) matches ASCII dashes against en dashes and em dashes too) Huh, you're right. I could've sworn that didn't work. I wouldn't have even noticed the character change otherwise. Maybe it started working again when Firefox added the ability to ignore diacritics. I guess that goes further than diacritics and works by general transliteration to ASCII.
AnotherGoodName 5y ago
When you hit scale every edge case becomes a reality.
im3w1l 5y ago
Ajax upvotes, upvote used to be just a link iirc.
CheezeIt 5y ago
Automated spam/voting ring detection and ranking systems.

xeromal 5y ago

If the number of users has grown over the last 14 years, I'm sure some of the code areas have needed to be tuned over 14 years as well.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

jolmg 5y ago

I think I've noticed changes a few times. For example, - the relative timestamps would go up to days, so you'd see e.g. "3121 days ago", and now they're replaced with dates at some point. - we're now able to escape * in comments. It used to be impossible (?) to use asterisks with consecutive characters, so you'd either have to put spaces around it or substitute with something like <asterisk>. This was unfortunate for inline code. - code blocks no longer scroll horizontally and wrap instead. This is my favorite change because many code blocks were actually indented bullet paragraphs. - the "past" link in the navbar was added - the subthread collapse link [-] used to use a - (ASCII 0x2d) and now it uses – (Unicode U+2013). This is my least favorite change because I used to use that for keyboard navigation. It was pretty convenient to Ctrl+F [- <Enter>... to navigate between comments then <Esc> <Enter> to collapse a thread and Ctrl+F <Enter>... to keep navigating. These are relatively recent changes.

viraptor 5y ago
There's also the "second chance" list (few months ago?)
- jolmg 5y ago
  This one, right? https://news.ycombinator.com/pool https://news.ycombinator.com/pool Doesn't seem to be linked anywhere, though. I wonder if there are other pages like that.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Izkata 5y ago
    In the footer is "Lists", which goes here and includes that: https://news.ycombinator.com/lists https://news.ycombinator.com/lists Others have added more here in 2009 that aren't in either place: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1024293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1024293
j1elo 5y ago
> the subthread collapse link [...] is my least favorite change because [...] To each their own, but yours was to me a fun practical example of that famous xkcd strip called "workflows" that is sometimes linked in HN, about how every possible change is seemingly always able to break someone's way of using your product :)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
pritambaral 5y ago
> the subthread collapse link [-] used to use a - (ASCII 0x2d) and now it uses – (Unicode U+2013). This is my least favorite change because I used to use that for keyboard navigation. Hasn't been a problem for me (my browser (Firefox on Linux) matches ASCII dashes against en dashes and em dashes too), but you could try using a Compose key shortcut? On Linux at least, the Compose key shortcuts[1] for en dash and em dash are easy: minus-minus-period and minus-minus-minus respectively. 1: https://fsymbols.com/keyboard/linux/compose/ https://fsymbols.com/keyboard/linux/compose/
- jolmg 5y ago
  > Hasn't been a problem for me (my browser (Firefox on Linux) matches ASCII dashes against en dashes and em dashes too) Huh, you're right. I could've sworn that didn't work. I wouldn't have even noticed the character change otherwise. Maybe it started working again when Firefox added the ability to ignore diacritics. I guess that goes further than diacritics and works by general transliteration to ASCII.

AnotherGoodName 5y ago

When you hit scale every edge case becomes a reality.

im3w1l 5y ago

Ajax upvotes, upvote used to be just a link iirc.

CheezeIt 5y ago

Automated spam/voting ring detection and ranking systems.