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From the Flipboard page: > You cannot build a 60fps scrolling list view with DOM. I simply do not believe that. I have no problems scrolling around the intern

by xyby 12y ago

From the Flipboard page: > You cannot build a 60fps scrolling list view with DOM. I simply do not believe that. I have no problems scrolling around the internet. And the examples they give (flipboard.com/@flipboard) give me no clue about what their problem with the DOM is. I find it really hard to imagine you couldn't do that in the DOM. I wonder what is going on over there.

engendered 12y ago
Their use model is specifically on mobile devices, and it is certainly true that many sites run absolutely abysmally on smartphones/tablets. While these devices are powerful, they're still weak compared to most of our desktop machines. Flipboard spent an enormous amount of effort making a rendering to canvas platform, humorously to allow an "open" option aside from their app (which makes the complaint about it in the submission rather perplexing). I suspect they did a lot of analysis. And the DOM is notoriously slow, one of the reasons being that it is now a catch all/everything and the sink platform that has an enormous number of modifiers -- the flexibility that we hail is also what leads to engine slowdown. We need a new, simpler layout standard that simplifies all of the various sidepaths and diversions that got built into the standard.
- xyby 12y ago
  > I suspect they did a lot of analysis I heard the same "argument" when Facebook went from HTML to native. Personally, I never attribute to expertise what adequately can be explained by stupidity.
  - engendered 12y ago
    And they're still native. Most users find it a much better experience, and the general experience with the wrapped browser Facebook app was horrendous. I'm not quite sure what your point is. http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/13/facebook-android-faster/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/13/facebook-android-faster/ After Facebook went native, LinkedIn did some "why we went with HTML5" thing...and then not long after they went native. You mentioned in another comment that you need to see a list that has troubles on your Nexus 4. I find it difficult to believe you use the web much on the device with such a claim -- I regularly use a Nexus 4, 5, 7 (2013), and I regularly encounter horrendous websites where the site is so grotesquely overloaded that scroll requests are acted on literally a second+ later. I love the web. I endlessly evangelize the web. But it has serious, profound problems that its biggest champions had to completely work around or avoid altogether.
    - CmonDev 12y ago
      As an added bonus you get a real choice of languages and frameworks once you depart from "open" web that practically only runs on JS, HTML, CSS. Transpilation is a hack.
      - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
        Transpilation isn't a hack, all compilation is "transpilation".
        CmonDev 12y ago
        Not if some people are choosing to build apps and libraries in assembly. Websites using manually written JavaScript and HTML should be disabled to run on modern browsers.
    - xyby 12y ago
      > You mentioned in another comment that you need to see a list that has troubles on your Nexus 4 I said "minimal example". As Linus Torvalds puts it: Words are cheap, show me code.
archagon 12y ago
You cannot build a <dynamic> 60fps scrolling list view <with custom animations> with a DOM. Can't complain; their results do look gorgeous.
- xyby 12y ago
  I would love to see a minimal example of a "dynamic scrolling list view with custom animations" that does not work smoothly on my old Nexus 4.
  - untog 12y ago
    As someone who spends almost every day working on mobile web stuff, I promise you - doing anything involving custom animations on scroll is awful. Because you have to hook into the onScroll JS event and change properties on the fly, the effect is usually janky at best. Particularly on iOS < 8, because it didn't fire onScroll events regularly.

by xyby 12y ago

engendered 12y ago

Their use model is specifically on mobile devices, and it is certainly true that many sites run absolutely abysmally on smartphones/tablets. While these devices are powerful, they're still weak compared to most of our desktop machines. Flipboard spent an enormous amount of effort making a rendering to canvas platform, humorously to allow an "open" option aside from their app (which makes the complaint about it in the submission rather perplexing). I suspect they did a lot of analysis. And the DOM is notoriously slow, one of the reasons being that it is now a catch all/everything and the sink platform that has an enormous number of modifiers -- the flexibility that we hail is also what leads to engine slowdown. We need a new, simpler layout standard that simplifies all of the various sidepaths and diversions that got built into the standard.

xyby 12y ago
> I suspect they did a lot of analysis I heard the same "argument" when Facebook went from HTML to native. Personally, I never attribute to expertise what adequately can be explained by stupidity.
- engendered 12y ago
  And they're still native. Most users find it a much better experience, and the general experience with the wrapped browser Facebook app was horrendous. I'm not quite sure what your point is. http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/13/facebook-android-faster/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/13/facebook-android-faster/ After Facebook went native, LinkedIn did some "why we went with HTML5" thing...and then not long after they went native. You mentioned in another comment that you need to see a list that has troubles on your Nexus 4. I find it difficult to believe you use the web much on the device with such a claim -- I regularly use a Nexus 4, 5, 7 (2013), and I regularly encounter horrendous websites where the site is so grotesquely overloaded that scroll requests are acted on literally a second+ later. I love the web. I endlessly evangelize the web. But it has serious, profound problems that its biggest champions had to completely work around or avoid altogether.
  - CmonDev 12y ago
    As an added bonus you get a real choice of languages and frameworks once you depart from "open" web that practically only runs on JS, HTML, CSS. Transpilation is a hack.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
      Transpilation isn't a hack, all compilation is "transpilation".
      - CmonDev 12y ago
        Not if some people are choosing to build apps and libraries in assembly. Websites using manually written JavaScript and HTML should be disabled to run on modern browsers.
  - xyby 12y ago
    > You mentioned in another comment that you need to see a list that has troubles on your Nexus 4 I said "minimal example". As Linus Torvalds puts it: Words are cheap, show me code.

archagon 12y ago

You cannot build a <dynamic> 60fps scrolling list view <with custom animations> with a DOM. Can't complain; their results do look gorgeous.

xyby 12y ago
I would love to see a minimal example of a "dynamic scrolling list view with custom animations" that does not work smoothly on my old Nexus 4.
- untog 12y ago
  As someone who spends almost every day working on mobile web stuff, I promise you - doing anything involving custom animations on scroll is awful. Because you have to hook into the onScroll JS event and change properties on the fly, the effect is usually janky at best. Particularly on iOS < 8, because it didn't fire onScroll events regularly.