5 ms·

It's obviously not a matter of money/chops, but that of the priorities.

by eps 12y ago

enraged_camel 12y ago
Sure, but how hard is it to write some basic CSS? I mean we are talking about making the text bigger when viewed on mobile devices, right?
- zupa-hu 12y ago
  Maybe it's not an issue for everyone. I'm quite happy with how it is.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Three browsers across a very large variety of screen sizes, resolutions, colour depths and so on. Clearly writing some 'basic CSS' is not hard but writing future proof CSS that will remain compatible with all the devices that do not exist yet is next to impossible. Therefore backwards compatibility is expected of new devices rather than that we expect existing websites to be forward compatible with devices that do not even exist. And that's ignoring for the moment the burden of testing a website on all possible devices (which is the way we nowadays go about developing commercial websites, and which is entirely wrong, if a website works on one browser it should work on all, a ship which has long ago sailed but which made good sense at the time and was one of the main reasons the web caught on over all those proprietary and fragmented efforts at information dissemination that preceded it).
  - enraged_camel 12y ago
    >>Clearly writing some 'basic CSS' is not hard but writing future proof CSS that will remain compatible with all the devices that do not exist yet is next to impossible. Considering that the problem exists in the present and is very real, I'm not sure why not being able to write future-proof CSS is a big issue. How often do commonly-used CSS properties (e.g. font-size) become outdated? When was the last time you had to re-write the stylesheets on one of your websites? >>And that's ignoring for the moment the burden of testing a website on all possible devices I think the HN userbase is not only capable but also would be willing to perform this testing. Deploy the website on a separate directory (e.g. news.combinator.com/newdesign/etc.) and direct users who opt into the beta there. Heck, I bet there's quite a few people here who would love to take it on as a volunteer project.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      It's not about capability it's about where the burden should lie. Future readers should be compatible with past documents, not the other way around. Case in point: the geocities files that were backed-up and are on display from a variety of sources (including mine, but also the internet archive and archive team) are static, no longer in maintenance. The same goes for all of the internet archive. If you want to see that content at any point in the future you had better hope that the browsers are the ones to adapt to the past because the past is certainly not going to adapt to the browser and as the web ages there will only be more of the past and relatively speaking less of the present. The web is aging rapidly and the current development of modern browsers on modern devices failing to render sites that are only a few years old properly is a worrisome one. HN is in fact one of the least affected sites in this respect.
  - seba_dos1 12y ago
    It was like that - mobile vendors tried to adapt their browsers to make the already existing websites look somehow good. But then iPhone happened.
  - gremlinsinc 12y ago
    Seriously, all they need to do is throw in Twitter Bootstrap, re-change some div classes, and bam mobile friendly.. It's not like the site has a lot of eye candy that needs changed anyhow...
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      And bam lots of stuff that works today might break.
      - krapp 12y ago
        If you're referring to tools that crawl the site, there is an official HN API now for exactly that reason. If you expect the HTML to never change and then it does and your thing breaks that's no one's responsibility but yours.
        jacquesm 12y ago
        No, I'm not referring to tools that crawl the site. I'm referring to the fact that simply replacing a bunch of working code to placate one segment of users will surely create issues elsewhere. Crawlers are a (small) subset of that. Pleasing everybody on a fixed budget is impossible.
        krapp 12y ago
        How big is that one segment, though? I honestly don't know, so maybe dang or kogir could clue us in. If a significant number of users are on mobile, and it's reasonable to expect that number to increase for the foreseeable future, then placating mobile users makes sense. I doubt that increasing their SEO is really a priority for the HN staff either way. Also, two out of the three issues on the google site come down to simple typography and UX. Elements being too close together (links, line-height to add my own personal pet peeve) or too small (font size and the oft-complained about vote arrows) or too poorly contrasted (grey text on a lighter grey background) making things difficult to read and navigate. I don't see anything wrong with improving the readability of a site which is meant to be read... that makes the experience better for everyone.

It's obviously not a matter of money/chops, but that of the priorities.

by eps 12y ago

It's obviously not a matter of money/chops, but that of the priorities.

Sure, but how hard is it to write some basic CSS? I mean we are talking about making the text bigger when viewed on mobile devices, right?

zupa-hu 12y ago
Maybe it's not an issue for everyone. I'm quite happy with how it is.
jacquesm 12y ago
Three browsers across a very large variety of screen sizes, resolutions, colour depths and so on. Clearly writing some 'basic CSS' is not hard but writing future proof CSS that will remain compatible with all the devices that do not exist yet is next to impossible. Therefore backwards compatibility is expected of new devices rather than that we expect existing websites to be forward compatible with devices that do not even exist. And that's ignoring for the moment the burden of testing a website on all possible devices (which is the way we nowadays go about developing commercial websites, and which is entirely wrong, if a website works on one browser it should work on all, a ship which has long ago sailed but which made good sense at the time and was one of the main reasons the web caught on over all those proprietary and fragmented efforts at information dissemination that preceded it).
- enraged_camel 12y ago
  >>Clearly writing some 'basic CSS' is not hard but writing future proof CSS that will remain compatible with all the devices that do not exist yet is next to impossible. Considering that the problem exists in the present and is very real, I'm not sure why not being able to write future-proof CSS is a big issue. How often do commonly-used CSS properties (e.g. font-size) become outdated? When was the last time you had to re-write the stylesheets on one of your websites? >>And that's ignoring for the moment the burden of testing a website on all possible devices I think the HN userbase is not only capable but also would be willing to perform this testing. Deploy the website on a separate directory (e.g. news.combinator.com/newdesign/etc.) and direct users who opt into the beta there. Heck, I bet there's quite a few people here who would love to take it on as a volunteer project.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    It's not about capability it's about where the burden should lie. Future readers should be compatible with past documents, not the other way around. Case in point: the geocities files that were backed-up and are on display from a variety of sources (including mine, but also the internet archive and archive team) are static, no longer in maintenance. The same goes for all of the internet archive. If you want to see that content at any point in the future you had better hope that the browsers are the ones to adapt to the past because the past is certainly not going to adapt to the browser and as the web ages there will only be more of the past and relatively speaking less of the present. The web is aging rapidly and the current development of modern browsers on modern devices failing to render sites that are only a few years old properly is a worrisome one. HN is in fact one of the least affected sites in this respect.
- seba_dos1 12y ago
  It was like that - mobile vendors tried to adapt their browsers to make the already existing websites look somehow good. But then iPhone happened.
- gremlinsinc 12y ago
  Seriously, all they need to do is throw in Twitter Bootstrap, re-change some div classes, and bam mobile friendly.. It's not like the site has a lot of eye candy that needs changed anyhow...
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    And bam lots of stuff that works today might break.
    - krapp 12y ago
      If you're referring to tools that crawl the site, there is an official HN API now for exactly that reason. If you expect the HTML to never change and then it does and your thing breaks that's no one's responsibility but yours.
      - jacquesm 12y ago
        No, I'm not referring to tools that crawl the site. I'm referring to the fact that simply replacing a bunch of working code to placate one segment of users will surely create issues elsewhere. Crawlers are a (small) subset of that. Pleasing everybody on a fixed budget is impossible.
        krapp 12y ago
        How big is that one segment, though? I honestly don't know, so maybe dang or kogir could clue us in. If a significant number of users are on mobile, and it's reasonable to expect that number to increase for the foreseeable future, then placating mobile users makes sense. I doubt that increasing their SEO is really a priority for the HN staff either way. Also, two out of the three issues on the google site come down to simple typography and UX. Elements being too close together (links, line-height to add my own personal pet peeve) or too small (font size and the oft-complained about vote arrows) or too poorly contrasted (grey text on a lighter grey background) making things difficult to read and navigate. I don't see anything wrong with improving the readability of a site which is meant to be read... that makes the experience better for everyone.