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Making the whole thing client side also let him scale from a small handful of users to literally millions with basically zero additional work. I hope it inspir

Making the whole thing client side also let him scale from a small handful of users to literally millions with basically zero additional work. I hope it inspires future devs to let go of feeling like they absolutely need to beg or require users to create accounts to capture email addresses just so they have a chance at monetizing their thing. Wordle may not have ever caught on if it were preemptively over-engineered: it could've added friction to the onboarding, the site could crash, etc. You can just build a great MVP and let it loose into the world, then see what happens.

koliber 5y ago
They could have at least thrown in a microservice or two to breathe some air into that fad.
julianwachholz 5y ago
Removing any friction for new users or players is such a huge deal, more sites should embrace this approach. Similar to how Facebook created ghost users for everyone, why not make this explicit? There are a number of plugins for popular web frameworks that create temporary user accounts for each visitor, allowing them to use the site just like a regular user. This way it's a bit more sophisticated than plain old sessions which allows it to be integrated in existing sites as well. And if the visitor abandons the site their data will just be garbage-collected after a while.
yen223 5y ago
I wish I were smart enough to coin a catchy phrase that means "the moment some software dropped in quality, when they decided to add user accounts", because I see this quite a lot. I'm looking at you, Postman!
- d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
  Yes, I left Postman immediately after rework because I couldn't understand how the hell to use it anymore. Same with Docker Desktop. I tried to use it for personal use a few weeks ago and couldn't figure out how to docker build a container anymore on WSL, then tried on native Windows and it was jabbering on about HyperV prereq and I just uninstalled it and went back to WSL for traditional package management. I think Docker shot themselves in the foot.
- dvirsky 5y ago
  I'm old enough to remember when Google didn't have user accounts.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  Oh yeah, and postman teams practically removed all your stored requests. In the same space, i love how Telerik kept Fiddler Classic useable!
- mccorrinall 5y ago
  > I'm looking at you, Postman! In order to use a websocket connection with postman you need to be signed into postman. I would love to switch to something else, unfortunately postman is the only tool I know which has built-in debugging tools for socket.io
- pcmoney 5y ago
  “Monetize”
- shortstuffsushi 5y ago
  This actually hurt to read, having used Postman since its launch. It was such a great, simple product then with a simple premise - easily make http requests from a simple ui. Since then, feature after feature has been added, now it's just total bloatware cruft, to the point where after having taken a break for several years, I found it relatively difficult to use upon return (especially if you want to avoid sign up). I see they've recently gotten a series d (!?) of $225 million, so good for them I guess, but it's not something I almost ever use any more, and no longer feel drawn to...
  - mym1990 5y ago
    Ditto. I used Postman pre-rework and then came back and had to spend 10 minutes trying to find the page to make an actual callout. And I still can’t find it on the first try whenever I re-use the service.
com2kid 5y ago
> Making the whole thing client side also let him scale from a small handful of users to literally millions with basically zero additional work. But everyone on HN is telling me that I should move away from client side and render everything server side! In fact, all state should be server side! Use a fancy library that opens a web socket and turn the users 4+core computer into a mindless zombie controlled by a .25CPU VM somewhere. /s
- yen223 5y ago
  I don't know how Wordle managed to scale to 3 million players without Kubernetes, it must be magic.
  - com2kid 5y ago
    When people ask me why I like SPAs: Because web servers are really good at serving up static files. That is it. I get to make an app, deliver it through the web, and not worry about server resources. I do have to worry about making the app not suck, but as a software engineer I should always be worrying about that! Web, mobile, desktop, making code not a bloated mess is kind of important no matter where it is running.
    - mmcnl 5y ago
      You're dumping all the compute requirements onto the client. But that's not always a bad thing. When done good, it's pretty good. Prime example: Worldle. No need to hate frontend.

koliber 5y ago

They could have at least thrown in a microservice or two to breathe some air into that fad.

julianwachholz 5y ago

Removing any friction for new users or players is such a huge deal, more sites should embrace this approach. Similar to how Facebook created ghost users for everyone, why not make this explicit? There are a number of plugins for popular web frameworks that create temporary user accounts for each visitor, allowing them to use the site just like a regular user. This way it's a bit more sophisticated than plain old sessions which allows it to be integrated in existing sites as well. And if the visitor abandons the site their data will just be garbage-collected after a while.

yen223 5y ago

I wish I were smart enough to coin a catchy phrase that means "the moment some software dropped in quality, when they decided to add user accounts", because I see this quite a lot. I'm looking at you, Postman!

d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
Yes, I left Postman immediately after rework because I couldn't understand how the hell to use it anymore. Same with Docker Desktop. I tried to use it for personal use a few weeks ago and couldn't figure out how to docker build a container anymore on WSL, then tried on native Windows and it was jabbering on about HyperV prereq and I just uninstalled it and went back to WSL for traditional package management. I think Docker shot themselves in the foot.
dvirsky 5y ago
I'm old enough to remember when Google didn't have user accounts.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
NicoJuicy 5y ago
Oh yeah, and postman teams practically removed all your stored requests. In the same space, i love how Telerik kept Fiddler Classic useable!
mccorrinall 5y ago
> I'm looking at you, Postman! In order to use a websocket connection with postman you need to be signed into postman. I would love to switch to something else, unfortunately postman is the only tool I know which has built-in debugging tools for socket.io
pcmoney 5y ago
“Monetize”
shortstuffsushi 5y ago
This actually hurt to read, having used Postman since its launch. It was such a great, simple product then with a simple premise - easily make http requests from a simple ui. Since then, feature after feature has been added, now it's just total bloatware cruft, to the point where after having taken a break for several years, I found it relatively difficult to use upon return (especially if you want to avoid sign up). I see they've recently gotten a series d (!?) of $225 million, so good for them I guess, but it's not something I almost ever use any more, and no longer feel drawn to...
- mym1990 5y ago
  Ditto. I used Postman pre-rework and then came back and had to spend 10 minutes trying to find the page to make an actual callout. And I still can’t find it on the first try whenever I re-use the service.

com2kid 5y ago

> Making the whole thing client side also let him scale from a small handful of users to literally millions with basically zero additional work. But everyone on HN is telling me that I should move away from client side and render everything server side! In fact, all state should be server side! Use a fancy library that opens a web socket and turn the users 4+core computer into a mindless zombie controlled by a .25CPU VM somewhere. /s

yen223 5y ago
I don't know how Wordle managed to scale to 3 million players without Kubernetes, it must be magic.
- com2kid 5y ago
  When people ask me why I like SPAs: Because web servers are really good at serving up static files. That is it. I get to make an app, deliver it through the web, and not worry about server resources. I do have to worry about making the app not suck, but as a software engineer I should always be worrying about that! Web, mobile, desktop, making code not a bloated mess is kind of important no matter where it is running.
  - mmcnl 5y ago
    You're dumping all the compute requirements onto the client. But that's not always a bad thing. When done good, it's pretty good. Prime example: Worldle. No need to hate frontend.