6 ms·

It's curious that some folks hate the side effects of insufficient infrastructure while missing that the lack of modern infrastructure is the root problem. It

by ttfkam 3y ago

It's curious that some folks hate the side effects of insufficient infrastructure while missing that the lack of modern infrastructure is the root problem. It is entirely possible to get a cell signal on a train, even in tunnels. We as a society just choose not to build out the necessary infrastructure.

gonzo41 3y ago
Europe has the benefit of having had a lot of roads created by the Romans. Infrastructure takes time.
- dylan604 3y ago
  But it burns in a day?
NotYourLawyer 3y ago
Adding physical networking infrastructure to all the trains and everything else is a much bigger job than adding a setting to a browser that lets the user opt out of lazy loading.
mvdtnz 3y ago
As a software developer I have very little control over rail infrastructure. However I have almost total control over the HTML attributes I emit.
- dylan604 3y ago
  [flagged]
- ttfkam 3y ago
  As a user, I have very little control over 99.999% of all sites' infrastructures. We were talking about lazy loading on a train. Most users have no control over the HTML attributes they receive. As software developers make up a vanishingly small amount of all users on trains, it seems prudent to highlight their collective experience, not the portion of a one-off that you can control as an individual contributor. I'm well aware that you or I as individuals have very little control over public transit infrastructure. It's a shame we cannot team up as a group to solve these issues rather than fixate on our experiences solely through a personal lens.
vorpalhex 3y ago
Right, because it's expensive and difficult and would make the train cost more. You could have truly wireless electricity power your phone and never have to recharge. You just need to invest in more infrastructure.
- ttfkam 3y ago
  > Right, because it's expensive and difficult and would make the train cost more. That you (and others) think network connectivity is anything higher than a rounding error in terms of rail infrastructure costs is likely part of the problem.
tekla 3y ago
It is the web developers choice to decide whether or not to deal with bad/poor internet connections. Most do not. Lazy loading makes it impossible to do anything to manage a poor connection.
- tentacleuno 3y ago
  Seems hard not to these days, especially with service workers which can cache resources for offline use.
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago
  > Lazy loading makes it impossible to do anything to manage a poor connection. This was the exact problem lazy loading was supposed to solve
  - hunter2_ 3y ago
    If the problem was out-of-viewport images impeding the receipt of assets that do affect the viewport (CSS, fonts, etc.) then it would be good to postpone fetching those images just until everything else is received, rather than postponing until they're closer to the viewport.
    - syndicatedjelly 3y ago
      Fun fact, if you type your password, it will show up as ***
  - plorkyeran 3y ago
    Which is indeed why it's a terrible idea.
  - ponderings 3y ago
    Makes me wonder what other great ideas we've implemented.
- vhcr 3y ago
  In this case it's also the choice of the user, they could choose to ignore the lazy loading tags (I know OP mentions their browser doesn't supports it, but they could choose another browser)
Vanit 3y ago
Ah, it's the users who are wrong! In all seriousness, as engineers we of course can't assume the happy path is common, and to ensure good UX more often than not we need to account for these cases.
- ttfkam 3y ago
  I'm not sure how you possibly got that reading from what I wrote. I'm am discussing a solution rather than a series of ephemeral and incomplete fixes. Not that developers can solve public transit issues but that society at large is the only one that can truly solve these issues. The users are not wrong in my assertion nor do I think disabling lazy loading is the solution. Disabling lazy loading is an ephemeral and incomplete fix that helps some scenarios while degrading the experience in other scenarios. The solution is improved infrastructure. I don't see why this position is controversial.
spaceprison 3y ago
So: developers can't change the way society has chosen to prioritize infrastructure, Poor user experience is the result of this societal failure, thus there is nothing that can be done to improve user experience? It seems more likely that the expectation that users must have consistent connectivity to load (and keep loaded) the most fundamental aspects of a website (images and text) is a poor assumption and the hubris to leave this type of assumption unchecked the actual root problem.
alpaca128 3y ago
Software is easier to adapt than everything else and users don't care why your website doesn't work properly. Building a website with the assumption that the user will have a perfect internet connection is like writing an application without error handling. When something goes wrong you can't just blame reality for being imperfect.

by ttfkam 3y ago

gonzo41 3y ago

Europe has the benefit of having had a lot of roads created by the Romans. Infrastructure takes time.

dylan604 3y ago
But it burns in a day?

NotYourLawyer 3y ago

Adding physical networking infrastructure to all the trains and everything else is a much bigger job than adding a setting to a browser that lets the user opt out of lazy loading.

mvdtnz 3y ago

As a software developer I have very little control over rail infrastructure. However I have almost total control over the HTML attributes I emit.

dylan604 3y ago
[flagged]
ttfkam 3y ago
As a user, I have very little control over 99.999% of all sites' infrastructures. We were talking about lazy loading on a train. Most users have no control over the HTML attributes they receive. As software developers make up a vanishingly small amount of all users on trains, it seems prudent to highlight their collective experience, not the portion of a one-off that you can control as an individual contributor. I'm well aware that you or I as individuals have very little control over public transit infrastructure. It's a shame we cannot team up as a group to solve these issues rather than fixate on our experiences solely through a personal lens.

vorpalhex 3y ago

Right, because it's expensive and difficult and would make the train cost more. You could have truly wireless electricity power your phone and never have to recharge. You just need to invest in more infrastructure.

ttfkam 3y ago
> Right, because it's expensive and difficult and would make the train cost more. That you (and others) think network connectivity is anything higher than a rounding error in terms of rail infrastructure costs is likely part of the problem.

tekla 3y ago

It is the web developers choice to decide whether or not to deal with bad/poor internet connections. Most do not. Lazy loading makes it impossible to do anything to manage a poor connection.

tentacleuno 3y ago
Seems hard not to these days, especially with service workers which can cache resources for offline use.
syndicatedjelly 3y ago
> Lazy loading makes it impossible to do anything to manage a poor connection. This was the exact problem lazy loading was supposed to solve
- hunter2_ 3y ago
  If the problem was out-of-viewport images impeding the receipt of assets that do affect the viewport (CSS, fonts, etc.) then it would be good to postpone fetching those images just until everything else is received, rather than postponing until they're closer to the viewport.
  - syndicatedjelly 3y ago
    Fun fact, if you type your password, it will show up as ***
- plorkyeran 3y ago
  Which is indeed why it's a terrible idea.
- ponderings 3y ago
  Makes me wonder what other great ideas we've implemented.
vhcr 3y ago
In this case it's also the choice of the user, they could choose to ignore the lazy loading tags (I know OP mentions their browser doesn't supports it, but they could choose another browser)

Vanit 3y ago

Ah, it's the users who are wrong! In all seriousness, as engineers we of course can't assume the happy path is common, and to ensure good UX more often than not we need to account for these cases.

ttfkam 3y ago
I'm not sure how you possibly got that reading from what I wrote. I'm am discussing a solution rather than a series of ephemeral and incomplete fixes. Not that developers can solve public transit issues but that society at large is the only one that can truly solve these issues. The users are not wrong in my assertion nor do I think disabling lazy loading is the solution. Disabling lazy loading is an ephemeral and incomplete fix that helps some scenarios while degrading the experience in other scenarios. The solution is improved infrastructure. I don't see why this position is controversial.

spaceprison 3y ago

So: developers can't change the way society has chosen to prioritize infrastructure, Poor user experience is the result of this societal failure, thus there is nothing that can be done to improve user experience? It seems more likely that the expectation that users must have consistent connectivity to load (and keep loaded) the most fundamental aspects of a website (images and text) is a poor assumption and the hubris to leave this type of assumption unchecked the actual root problem.

alpaca128 3y ago

Software is easier to adapt than everything else and users don't care why your website doesn't work properly. Building a website with the assumption that the user will have a perfect internet connection is like writing an application without error handling. When something goes wrong you can't just blame reality for being imperfect.