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Related to UI but not exactly on density. Even Refilling a prescriptions from Wallgreen's seems to have become impossible from a smaller phone such mine - IPhon

Related to UI but not exactly on density. Even Refilling a prescriptions from Wallgreen's seems to have become impossible from a smaller phone such mine - IPhone SE2020 - since the control to choose the pharmacy or add a zip code for searching one is not actionable, the interface automatically scrolls down and when I drag the page I can see that it's there but there's no way to access it. It appears to be some kind of React garbage optimized for larger screens but completely and utterly broken on slightly smaller ones. It's not that I have anything against the technology itself but it broke basic functionality of yesteryear that just worked. And to what avail? All seems broken and ugly these days. And this isn't even about looking under the hood and analyzing the waste this wave of technology has brought. Where are we heading to? Is everything about to get worse and worse? Who is benefitting from all this because the user isn't...

tracker1 2y ago
I'm with you... I use a 5.9" phone, but have accessibility/font settings maxed out. There are a lot of sites with limited or broken functionality. Modal dialogs are the absolute worst... they should be configured to just take over the screen on smaller displays, with the region as scrollable. It's easy enough to do, and has been my approach for menus and modals for a long while now.
jakubmazanec 2y ago
I'm sorry, but what does poorly implemented responsive design have to with React? I agree with you that most websites are very poorly made, but that's not React's fault (as much as it is being constantly shitted on here on HN, which I really don't like), only developers' (and their managers'). Please stop blaming frameworks.
- tshaddox 2y ago
  It's true that React almost certainly wouldn't be responsible for what sounds like a blatant layout bug on a narrow smartphone viewport. React has almost no opinions on things like web page layout or touch interactions. I have to imagine the commenter invoked "React" as a sort of scapegoat for the prevalence of low-quality web pages.
- LordDragonfang 2y ago
  Maybe not React itself, but the UI frameworks that draw devs to the frameworks, yes. Frameworks like that offer the promise of responsive design to developers without actually helping them understanding how it works, and as a result often fail to deliver on that promise. Splitting everything into 12 grid columns often just hides the actual work that needs to be done. Plain HTML is fully responsive by default, almost all framework components are less-so.
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  I don't blame React per say. But with the proliferation of this technology I've noticed lots of things broken (links, history navigation, layout) that render a lot of things unusable to me and unfortunately I see very few upsides. I'm even willing to admit that React and SPAs are a great technology that enables some (few) use cases that were cumbersome before. But, it clearly seems rushed and applied everywhere with no discernable thought.
  - jakubmazanec 2y ago
    React was created because we wanted to have more complex web apps. That brings more complexity in development. Empirically, clearly we now see everywhere that most companies don't want to pay for the best version of their websites they can have.
    - onemoresoop 2y ago
      I agree and part of that was delivered, I mentioned earlier that for some use cases SPA tech couldn't be better (well, it could and it keeps on improving and i'm in for it). But it seems that it washed away with good practices, with things that used to work and are utterly broken. Again, Im not blaming React, I just can't help but notice that the brokenness started around the same time React was adopted en masse.
  - skydhash 2y ago
    React is great for what it does. But people also wants it where it does not fit (where server-rendered html is enough with vanilla JS). And then they go on to re-implement half the browser features. Badly.
- sublinear 2y ago
  I completely agree with this. Management is usually under a lot of pressure to add new features or fix bugs from the previous release that was also rushed. This has a compounding effect on technical debt. The pace and scale of application development is also not at all comparable to the past. The level of involvement management has in app dev is much higher and there are more technical contributors who are less coordinated. This leads to a lot of "good enough" thinking instead of paying attention to details. This is especially true for products and especially at startups. Less so for services at big orgs. Services tend to have a longer lifecycle. Services are usually B2B and the public never sees those UIs.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools. You can blame a tool for making your work easier or harder, but you can't blame a tool for making your work substandard.
- drewcoo 2y ago
  There's an old saying: "a bad workman blames his tools."
DrScientist 2y ago
I've seen a lot of React interfaces that don't scale well - and even worse don't allow you to scroll to the bit you can't see! As I assume it's possible to have scalable interfaces in React - what's the common mistake people are doing?
- tshaddox 2y ago
  > As I assume it's possible to have scalable interfaces in React React has almost no opinions on web page layouts or anything related to styling. The only type of web page problem I can think of that's specific to React would be hydration errors, and this doesn't sound like that. The reason that a lot of React interfaces don't scale well is that the vast majority of web pages are very low quality, and React is a popular way to build web pages.
  - DrScientist 2y ago
    It appears to be associated with the use of react based visual components - particularly model type dialogs which when they appear allow enabling scrolling but that can appear partially offscreen. Obviously it's a developer competence issue, but I wondered if there was a React specific trick here - or as you say it's just that popular tech has by definition numerically more low quality/inexperienced developers.
  - verelo 2y ago
    I'm glad you said this. As someone that has written his fair share of raw html, php and js, it's a bit misleading to associate react and these issues. I'm writing in nextjs / react these days, and it's amazing...but like everything out there, if used poorly, you get poor results. Designing for reactive UI's and accessibility is a feature. Sometimes features get cut, even when they shouldnt.
- SnoozingBoa 2y ago
  Increase effort/improve in these areas: - focus on authoring robust CSS - actually test the UI (different devices, browsers, viewports, scenarios) - reserve APPROPRIATE time to test UI - reserve APPRORIATE time to fix the issues - have designer in tight loop - have systematic approach to track issues - test with users - aim to apply fixes asap so that the fixes gets tested as well Biggest single factor causing issues is to start late. The time will run out if the styling setup is not robust, it depends on some questionable conventions or libraries, or is simply hacked together. It is not that complicated, but it is most certainly difficult to do magic tricks late in the development. React itself is not a root cause. I believe the fundamental cause is a mix of skill issues, lack of knowledge, quality ambitions and time management.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
cvwright 2y ago
I spent 8.5 years teaching at a lower-tier, public "access" university in the US. Don't get me wrong, it was great for what it did, and I was fortunate to work with a lot of awesome people. But we were far from an elite, exclusive institution like Harvard or MIT. For many years I served on the CS department's graduate admissions committee. Lots of our MS applicants talked about working on sites for major US / western brands, and lots of those kids did not make the cutoff for even our relatively low bar for admission. I think about that a lot whenever I see that a multibillion dollar multinational corporation has a web page that doesn't work at all.
- yencabulator 2y ago
  Computer Science is an odd match for basic programming. I would want a CS department to reject many people who are perfectly capable of making good websites. I wish the US had a more appropriate path for "software development education" than "scientific study of computing" or commercial bootcamps. Where I'm from, after high school there's vocational higher education (as opposed to scientific higher education), and parallel to high school there's vocational education.

tracker1 2y ago

I'm with you... I use a 5.9" phone, but have accessibility/font settings maxed out. There are a lot of sites with limited or broken functionality. Modal dialogs are the absolute worst... they should be configured to just take over the screen on smaller displays, with the region as scrollable. It's easy enough to do, and has been my approach for menus and modals for a long while now.

jakubmazanec 2y ago

I'm sorry, but what does poorly implemented responsive design have to with React? I agree with you that most websites are very poorly made, but that's not React's fault (as much as it is being constantly shitted on here on HN, which I really don't like), only developers' (and their managers'). Please stop blaming frameworks.

tshaddox 2y ago
It's true that React almost certainly wouldn't be responsible for what sounds like a blatant layout bug on a narrow smartphone viewport. React has almost no opinions on things like web page layout or touch interactions. I have to imagine the commenter invoked "React" as a sort of scapegoat for the prevalence of low-quality web pages.
LordDragonfang 2y ago
Maybe not React itself, but the UI frameworks that draw devs to the frameworks, yes. Frameworks like that offer the promise of responsive design to developers without actually helping them understanding how it works, and as a result often fail to deliver on that promise. Splitting everything into 12 grid columns often just hides the actual work that needs to be done. Plain HTML is fully responsive by default, almost all framework components are less-so.
onemoresoop 2y ago
I don't blame React per say. But with the proliferation of this technology I've noticed lots of things broken (links, history navigation, layout) that render a lot of things unusable to me and unfortunately I see very few upsides. I'm even willing to admit that React and SPAs are a great technology that enables some (few) use cases that were cumbersome before. But, it clearly seems rushed and applied everywhere with no discernable thought.
- jakubmazanec 2y ago
  React was created because we wanted to have more complex web apps. That brings more complexity in development. Empirically, clearly we now see everywhere that most companies don't want to pay for the best version of their websites they can have.
  - onemoresoop 2y ago
    I agree and part of that was delivered, I mentioned earlier that for some use cases SPA tech couldn't be better (well, it could and it keeps on improving and i'm in for it). But it seems that it washed away with good practices, with things that used to work and are utterly broken. Again, Im not blaming React, I just can't help but notice that the brokenness started around the same time React was adopted en masse.
- skydhash 2y ago
  React is great for what it does. But people also wants it where it does not fit (where server-rendered html is enough with vanilla JS). And then they go on to re-implement half the browser features. Badly.
sublinear 2y ago
I completely agree with this. Management is usually under a lot of pressure to add new features or fix bugs from the previous release that was also rushed. This has a compounding effect on technical debt. The pace and scale of application development is also not at all comparable to the past. The level of involvement management has in app dev is much higher and there are more technical contributors who are less coordinated. This leads to a lot of "good enough" thinking instead of paying attention to details. This is especially true for products and especially at startups. Less so for services at big orgs. Services tend to have a longer lifecycle. Services are usually B2B and the public never sees those UIs.
JohnFen 2y ago
It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools. You can blame a tool for making your work easier or harder, but you can't blame a tool for making your work substandard.
drewcoo 2y ago
There's an old saying: "a bad workman blames his tools."

DrScientist 2y ago

I've seen a lot of React interfaces that don't scale well - and even worse don't allow you to scroll to the bit you can't see! As I assume it's possible to have scalable interfaces in React - what's the common mistake people are doing?

tshaddox 2y ago
> As I assume it's possible to have scalable interfaces in React React has almost no opinions on web page layouts or anything related to styling. The only type of web page problem I can think of that's specific to React would be hydration errors, and this doesn't sound like that. The reason that a lot of React interfaces don't scale well is that the vast majority of web pages are very low quality, and React is a popular way to build web pages.
- DrScientist 2y ago
  It appears to be associated with the use of react based visual components - particularly model type dialogs which when they appear allow enabling scrolling but that can appear partially offscreen. Obviously it's a developer competence issue, but I wondered if there was a React specific trick here - or as you say it's just that popular tech has by definition numerically more low quality/inexperienced developers.
- verelo 2y ago
  I'm glad you said this. As someone that has written his fair share of raw html, php and js, it's a bit misleading to associate react and these issues. I'm writing in nextjs / react these days, and it's amazing...but like everything out there, if used poorly, you get poor results. Designing for reactive UI's and accessibility is a feature. Sometimes features get cut, even when they shouldnt.
SnoozingBoa 2y ago
Increase effort/improve in these areas: - focus on authoring robust CSS - actually test the UI (different devices, browsers, viewports, scenarios) - reserve APPROPRIATE time to test UI - reserve APPRORIATE time to fix the issues - have designer in tight loop - have systematic approach to track issues - test with users - aim to apply fixes asap so that the fixes gets tested as well Biggest single factor causing issues is to start late. The time will run out if the styling setup is not robust, it depends on some questionable conventions or libraries, or is simply hacked together. It is not that complicated, but it is most certainly difficult to do magic tricks late in the development. React itself is not a root cause. I believe the fundamental cause is a mix of skill issues, lack of knowledge, quality ambitions and time management.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

cvwright 2y ago

I spent 8.5 years teaching at a lower-tier, public "access" university in the US. Don't get me wrong, it was great for what it did, and I was fortunate to work with a lot of awesome people. But we were far from an elite, exclusive institution like Harvard or MIT. For many years I served on the CS department's graduate admissions committee. Lots of our MS applicants talked about working on sites for major US / western brands, and lots of those kids did not make the cutoff for even our relatively low bar for admission. I think about that a lot whenever I see that a multibillion dollar multinational corporation has a web page that doesn't work at all.

yencabulator 2y ago
Computer Science is an odd match for basic programming. I would want a CS department to reject many people who are perfectly capable of making good websites. I wish the US had a more appropriate path for "software development education" than "scientific study of computing" or commercial bootcamps. Where I'm from, after high school there's vocational higher education (as opposed to scientific higher education), and parallel to high school there's vocational education.