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We go through this every now and then. Hell, I even replicated the exact HN look, on a project that pg asked me to shut down a couple years ago, using a much si

by geuis 14y ago

We go through this every now and then. Hell, I even replicated the exact HN look, on a project that pg asked me to shut down a couple years ago, using a much simplified div/CSS structure. Point is, it doesn't matter. Yes, could HN be totally revamped? Sure, there are thousands of capable engineers in the community that could and have done it. Should it be? Meh. Honestly, it just works. Its pretty stable. I read HN as much from my phone as a laptop. I've tried the various alternate UIs and iOS apps, but I always just come back to the site. I'm probably not the only old-timer that feels this way, but there are plenty of alternative UIs for those that want them, and indeed they use them. HN is a great lesson in the "don't fix it if it ain't broke" methodology of engineering. 2000+ year old Roman aqueducts are still used in some places in Europe. If somethings doing the job it was designed for, you don't have to upgrade the concrete just because you have newer cement.

tucson 14y ago
I think the UI matters. HN is great but I feel the commenting system could be greatly improved. Collapsable threads anyone? In general I wish HN would use a StackOverflow-like system (rep and votes on comments).
- Father 14y ago
  In my opinion it's fine the way it is. HN comments are compact and only separated by the bare minimum, which makes for easy and fast reading. Stackoverflow doesn't digest that well for me because it has a lot of unnecessary padding, boxes, user info, etc.
  - Charles__L 14y ago
    I think it could do with a little more spacing. Whitespace is an important part to easy skimming. Maybe 5px?
- ehosca 14y ago
  i second the collapsable threads. that would be a huge improvement.
- skyhook_mockups 14y ago
  I give up on long threads. There's no way to know at a glance which comments I've already read which makes keeping up-to-date on a quick moving discussion so painful I just give up. A simple colour coding of replies would make it much easier to revisit a thread.
  - Macha 14y ago
    There's also no point posting on a thread after the comments start paginating, as maybe 10% of people will go to the second page to view it, and you'll get no replies, in my experience.
- usedtolurk 14y ago
  I'm often disappointed to find comments veer off track and never return. In rare cases the digressions are more valuable than the original article, but it sure would be great to be able to collapse ego wars, etc.
sergiotapia 14y ago
But it is broken. No thread collapsing. Screen readers don't work well here. Renders poorly on mobile devices.
lloeki 14y ago
> Honestly, it just works. Honestly, it's a pain. My personal experience is vastly different. I have a 40min (one-way minimum) commute to work and I use that time where I can't create things to read news, so that I can spend time working at work and doing stuff at home. HN is simply an excruciating pain on a touch device. I regularly hit flag by mistake. I regulary miss the upvote arrow. I regularly downvote instead of upvote. It's just text and on my laptop I can see the content render like in those "Chrome is Fast" slow motion videos, except it's in real time (Chrome says 1+ second). Proxy apps simply don't cut it: they're either read only or have access to my credentials, and generally they appear to reach 90% of their development, and leave the remaining 90% undone. > We go through this every now and then. I'd take that as a clue that something's amiss. > "don't fix it if it ain't broke" But it is broken. It regularly times out on me, whether I load the site or I try to post a comment. I know it times out on me on votes, because I vote and then I come back later, and the vote arrow is there again. I don't know why, if that's because I'm across an ocean or whatever, but I have the feeling that ~3K characters of human text should not inflate by an order of magnitude with markup. I feel a code smell every time I browse here, the kind of which that could have an impact at scale. I'm not saying I know how to fix it, I'm not bragging I could do better, but hell yes is there something wrong. The only reason I put up with it is that the voting system is smart, and the content and community are great. Now I will click 'reply', and as always I will take great care of copying the content of my reply, just in case. </rant>
- geuis 14y ago
  Excellent points. For your situation, you might try some of the alternative interfaces. Might have a better experience.
- Xymak1y 14y ago
  You should check out the Lazarus browser addon for textarea backups :)
  - briandear 14y ago
    If one needs a browser addon to make a site work well, then the site isn't well designed. Tumblr, for example is a delight to use on all browsers (mobile and otherwise) and it doesn't require an add-ons.
sktrdie 14y ago
The current HTML/CSS of HN acts as an API for third-party services and apps that depend on HN's data. If you change this API, you break all these services. So in my opinion, it's not worth the change.
- robin_reala 14y ago
  Scraping a rendered HTML view ≠ a stable API in any sense of the word.
  - sktrdie 14y ago
    Why? What's your argument?
briandear 14y ago
I would love it if the site were responsive. Reading and commenting via iPhone is an exceptional pain.

by geuis 14y ago

tucson 14y ago

I think the UI matters. HN is great but I feel the commenting system could be greatly improved. Collapsable threads anyone? In general I wish HN would use a StackOverflow-like system (rep and votes on comments).

Father 14y ago
In my opinion it's fine the way it is. HN comments are compact and only separated by the bare minimum, which makes for easy and fast reading. Stackoverflow doesn't digest that well for me because it has a lot of unnecessary padding, boxes, user info, etc.
- Charles__L 14y ago
  I think it could do with a little more spacing. Whitespace is an important part to easy skimming. Maybe 5px?
ehosca 14y ago
i second the collapsable threads. that would be a huge improvement.
skyhook_mockups 14y ago
I give up on long threads. There's no way to know at a glance which comments I've already read which makes keeping up-to-date on a quick moving discussion so painful I just give up. A simple colour coding of replies would make it much easier to revisit a thread.
- Macha 14y ago
  There's also no point posting on a thread after the comments start paginating, as maybe 10% of people will go to the second page to view it, and you'll get no replies, in my experience.
usedtolurk 14y ago
I'm often disappointed to find comments veer off track and never return. In rare cases the digressions are more valuable than the original article, but it sure would be great to be able to collapse ego wars, etc.

sergiotapia 14y ago

But it is broken. No thread collapsing. Screen readers don't work well here. Renders poorly on mobile devices.

lloeki 14y ago

> Honestly, it just works. Honestly, it's a pain. My personal experience is vastly different. I have a 40min (one-way minimum) commute to work and I use that time where I can't create things to read news, so that I can spend time working at work and doing stuff at home. HN is simply an excruciating pain on a touch device. I regularly hit flag by mistake. I regulary miss the upvote arrow. I regularly downvote instead of upvote. It's just text and on my laptop I can see the content render like in those "Chrome is Fast" slow motion videos, except it's in real time (Chrome says 1+ second). Proxy apps simply don't cut it: they're either read only or have access to my credentials, and generally they appear to reach 90% of their development, and leave the remaining 90% undone. > We go through this every now and then. I'd take that as a clue that something's amiss. > "don't fix it if it ain't broke" But it is broken. It regularly times out on me, whether I load the site or I try to post a comment. I know it times out on me on votes, because I vote and then I come back later, and the vote arrow is there again. I don't know why, if that's because I'm across an ocean or whatever, but I have the feeling that ~3K characters of human text should not inflate by an order of magnitude with markup. I feel a code smell every time I browse here, the kind of which that could have an impact at scale. I'm not saying I know how to fix it, I'm not bragging I could do better, but hell yes is there something wrong. The only reason I put up with it is that the voting system is smart, and the content and community are great. Now I will click 'reply', and as always I will take great care of copying the content of my reply, just in case. </rant>

geuis 14y ago
Excellent points. For your situation, you might try some of the alternative interfaces. Might have a better experience.
Xymak1y 14y ago
You should check out the Lazarus browser addon for textarea backups :)
- briandear 14y ago
  If one needs a browser addon to make a site work well, then the site isn't well designed. Tumblr, for example is a delight to use on all browsers (mobile and otherwise) and it doesn't require an add-ons.

sktrdie 14y ago

The current HTML/CSS of HN acts as an API for third-party services and apps that depend on HN's data. If you change this API, you break all these services. So in my opinion, it's not worth the change.

robin_reala 14y ago
Scraping a rendered HTML view ≠ a stable API in any sense of the word.
- sktrdie 14y ago
  Why? What's your argument?

briandear 14y ago

I would love it if the site were responsive. Reading and commenting via iPhone is an exceptional pain.