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In answer to my own question about in-depth decision making, I just found this presentation from February 2025 by seven-year GitHub veteran Joel Hawksley: https

by simonw 1y ago

In answer to my own question about in-depth decision making, I just found this presentation from February 2025 by seven-year GitHub veteran Joel Hawksley: https://hawksley.org/2025/02/10/lessons-from-5-years-of-ui-architecture-at-github.html https://hawksley.org/2025/02/10/lessons-from-5-years-of-ui-a... Relevant quote: > But beyond accessibility and availability, there is also a growing expectation of GitHub being more app-like. > The first case of this was when we rebuilt GitHub projects. Customers were asking for features well beyond our existing feature set. More broadly, we are seeing other companies in our space innovate with more app-like experiences. > Which has led us to adoption React. While we don’t have plans to rewrite GitHub in React, we are building most new experiences in React, especially when they are app-like. > We made this decision a couple of years ago, and since then we’ve added about 250 React routes that serve about half of the average pages used by a given user in a week. It then goes on to talk about how mobile is the new baseline and GitHub needed to build interfaces that felt more like mobile apps. (Personally I think JavaScript-heavy React code is a disaster on mobile since it's so slow to load on the median (Android) device. I guess GitHub's core audience are more likely to have powerful phones?)

blibble 1y ago
github is a tool used where code is written: on desktop computers no-one cares about the github mobile experience microsoft making the windows 8 mistake all over again
- simonw 1y ago
  I interact with GitHub on my mobile phone every day.
  - blibble 1y ago
    yeah and I bet three people used Windows 8 on tablets too.
    - simonw 1y ago
      I think you are wildly underestimating how common it is for people to use GitHub from a phone. It's where I interact with notifications about new issues and PRs for one thing. I doubt I'm alone there.
      - bigstrat2003 1y ago
        I think you're very much in the minority, but I guess we can't really know.
homebrewer 1y ago
For contrast, gitea/forgejo use as little JavaScript as possible, and have been busy removing frontend libraries over the past year or so. For example, jquery was removed in favor of native ES6+. Let them choke on their "app-like experience", and if you can afford it, switch over to either one. I cannot recommend it enough after using it "in production" daily for more than five years.
elktown 1y ago
I honestly believe that the people involved likely already wanted to move over to React/SPAs for one reason or another, and were mostly just searching for excuses to do so - hence these kind of vague and seemingly disproportional reasons. Mobile over desktop? Whatever app-like means over performance? Non-technical incentives steering technical decisions is more common than we'd perhaps like to admit.
LtWorf 1y ago
Who has ever used github on mobile? I'd like to see their logs about this.
- simonw 1y ago
  Me, every day.
  - LtWorf 1y ago
    And what do you achieve by doing that? Seems a small audience to optimise for.
    - simonw 1y ago
      I file issues, comment on issues, review PRs and increasingly ship code entirely from my phone (thanks to LLM assistance). All of six of these commits today were created and shipped from my phone while I was out and about on a nice dog walk: https://github.com/simonw/tools/commits/47b07010e3459adb23e154dde653c4a7991f7e12/ https://github.com/simonw/tools/commits/47b07010e3459adb23e1... - now deployed to https://tools.simonwillison.net https://tools.simonwillison.net
      - LtWorf 1y ago
        [flagged]
        simonw 1y ago
        Yeah, it's really sad to be able to walk the dog for an hour a day, check out the local pelicans and simultaneously hack on fun projects on my phone.
        yeasku 1y ago
        Saying your life is about filling PRs on you phone while walking your dog is not the flex you think it is.
datadrivenangel 1y ago
What's nuts about that presentation is that the github frontend has gone from ~.2 to >2 Million lines of code in the last 5-6 years. 10x the code... to get slower?
- elktown 1y ago
  That also means a much larger team and great possibilities for good perf reviews, so basically an excellent outcome in a corporate env. People follow incentives.
sunaookami 1y ago
What does "app-like" even mean? It's a website, not an app. Don't they have a native app for phones?

by simonw 1y ago

blibble 1y ago

github is a tool used where code is written: on desktop computers no-one cares about the github mobile experience microsoft making the windows 8 mistake all over again

simonw 1y ago
I interact with GitHub on my mobile phone every day.
- blibble 1y ago
  yeah and I bet three people used Windows 8 on tablets too.
  - simonw 1y ago
    I think you are wildly underestimating how common it is for people to use GitHub from a phone. It's where I interact with notifications about new issues and PRs for one thing. I doubt I'm alone there.
    - bigstrat2003 1y ago
      I think you're very much in the minority, but I guess we can't really know.

homebrewer 1y ago

For contrast, gitea/forgejo use as little JavaScript as possible, and have been busy removing frontend libraries over the past year or so. For example, jquery was removed in favor of native ES6+. Let them choke on their "app-like experience", and if you can afford it, switch over to either one. I cannot recommend it enough after using it "in production" daily for more than five years.

elktown 1y ago

I honestly believe that the people involved likely already wanted to move over to React/SPAs for one reason or another, and were mostly just searching for excuses to do so - hence these kind of vague and seemingly disproportional reasons. Mobile over desktop? Whatever app-like means over performance? Non-technical incentives steering technical decisions is more common than we'd perhaps like to admit.

LtWorf 1y ago

Who has ever used github on mobile? I'd like to see their logs about this.

simonw 1y ago
Me, every day.
- LtWorf 1y ago
  And what do you achieve by doing that? Seems a small audience to optimise for.
  - simonw 1y ago
    I file issues, comment on issues, review PRs and increasingly ship code entirely from my phone (thanks to LLM assistance). All of six of these commits today were created and shipped from my phone while I was out and about on a nice dog walk: https://github.com/simonw/tools/commits/47b07010e3459adb23e154dde653c4a7991f7e12/ https://github.com/simonw/tools/commits/47b07010e3459adb23e1... - now deployed to https://tools.simonwillison.net https://tools.simonwillison.net
    - LtWorf 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - simonw 1y ago
        Yeah, it's really sad to be able to walk the dog for an hour a day, check out the local pelicans and simultaneously hack on fun projects on my phone.
        yeasku 1y ago
        Saying your life is about filling PRs on you phone while walking your dog is not the flex you think it is.

datadrivenangel 1y ago

What's nuts about that presentation is that the github frontend has gone from ~.2 to >2 Million lines of code in the last 5-6 years. 10x the code... to get slower?

elktown 1y ago
That also means a much larger team and great possibilities for good perf reviews, so basically an excellent outcome in a corporate env. People follow incentives.

sunaookami 1y ago

What does "app-like" even mean? It's a website, not an app. Don't they have a native app for phones?