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ironic that the benefit of using web tech (platform abstractions) can be totally negated by such a small footgun, which then requires insane knowledge of the br

ironic that the benefit of using web tech (platform abstractions) can be totally negated by such a small footgun, which then requires insane knowledge of the browser rendering pipeline to solve

Sharlin 1y ago
One problem is that this is supposedly considered insane esoteric knowledge, when the concept of reflows, and why and when they're triggered, ought to be fairly basic knowledge to every reasonably experienced frontend coder. Up there with "O(n^2) may bite you in the ass". But we've decided that optimizing SEO or conversion rates or whatever is much more important than optimizing rendering.
- jbeninger 1y ago
  I think there's a bit of an "everybody knows that" [1] phenomenon when it comes to knowledge like this. Devs come from different backgrounds and work on different types of projects. There are 10000 things you expected to know to be an expert, and all of us are continually learning. [1] https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
  - Levitating 1y ago
    Except that this is the developer of an apparently popular and well-invested product. If you expect to make a note taking app, which only has a piece of text, a stop button and a floating animation, I hope that you figure out why your performance is being tanked by your single animation.
Etheryte 1y ago
None of this should be esoteric knowledge if you work with web technologies for a living. Animations, box shadows and blurs have a very long history of performance issues. Similarly, standard tools easily highlight the issue, as shown in the article.
makeitdouble 1y ago
> insane knowledge of the browser rendering pipeline to solve Saying it having not much of that knowledge myself: it's reasonable to sometimes need platform knowledge to make intricate things (here a realtime animation) behave efficiently. That's the same for game engines, native rendering, flash animations etc. There will always be edge cases, building enough stuff you'll hit them, and if you care about doing it right it will require knowledge to overcome the issues.

ironic that the benefit of using web tech (platform abstractions) can be totally negated by such a small footgun, which then requires insane knowledge of the browser rendering pipeline to solve

Sharlin 1y ago

One problem is that this is supposedly considered insane esoteric knowledge, when the concept of reflows, and why and when they're triggered, ought to be fairly basic knowledge to every reasonably experienced frontend coder. Up there with "O(n^2) may bite you in the ass". But we've decided that optimizing SEO or conversion rates or whatever is much more important than optimizing rendering.

jbeninger 1y ago
I think there's a bit of an "everybody knows that" [1] phenomenon when it comes to knowledge like this. Devs come from different backgrounds and work on different types of projects. There are 10000 things you expected to know to be an expert, and all of us are continually learning. [1] https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- Levitating 1y ago
  Except that this is the developer of an apparently popular and well-invested product. If you expect to make a note taking app, which only has a piece of text, a stop button and a floating animation, I hope that you figure out why your performance is being tanked by your single animation.

Etheryte 1y ago

None of this should be esoteric knowledge if you work with web technologies for a living. Animations, box shadows and blurs have a very long history of performance issues. Similarly, standard tools easily highlight the issue, as shown in the article.

makeitdouble 1y ago

> insane knowledge of the browser rendering pipeline to solve Saying it having not much of that knowledge myself: it's reasonable to sometimes need platform knowledge to make intricate things (here a realtime animation) behave efficiently. That's the same for game engines, native rendering, flash animations etc. There will always be edge cases, building enough stuff you'll hit them, and if you care about doing it right it will require knowledge to overcome the issues.