Ask HN: Why is hackernews so old-fashioned?
63 comments
Dude, this is the only site that loads when I hit my data cap on my phone, and my 4G LTE "unlimited" data plan slows down to something akin to a 56k modem from 1995.
Literally almost no other site loads in under a whopping minute, because all of them slam 10MB of transpiled javascript, and another 20MB of CSS, background images and high resolution sprite sheets for widgets I'll never even click on. Not to mention the pixels and third-party ad-tech, which may or may not be baked into the initial JS payload.
Then the document.ready() kicks in, and maybe a hundred other resources are invited to the party, and the videos try to autoplay with sound, while all the gifs start their loops.
You say old fashioned, but even wikipedia is bloated and horrible when my bandwidth allowance gets throttled by my mobile carrier. If HN didn't load, I'd either have to find a hobby and talk to people (The Horror), or cough up like $90 a week (what would actually happen) because every other web page tries to show me 2GB of video in ads alone, as if I'm going to patronize any business that blasts a cacaphony of unwanted sound in my face when I'm trying to read, all of which I suspect might be a concerted effort orchestrated as part of a conspiracy between advertisers and ISP's to poison net neutral rate plans and price gouge the hell out of anyone using their phone for internet related things, aka: everyone.
Literally almost no other site loads in under a whopping minute, because all of them slam 10MB of transpiled javascript, and another 20MB of CSS, background images and high resolution sprite sheets for widgets I'll never even click on. Not to mention the pixels and third-party ad-tech, which may or may not be baked into the initial JS payload.
Then the document.ready() kicks in, and maybe a hundred other resources are invited to the party, and the videos try to autoplay with sound, while all the gifs start their loops.
You say old fashioned, but even wikipedia is bloated and horrible when my bandwidth allowance gets throttled by my mobile carrier. If HN didn't load, I'd either have to find a hobby and talk to people (The Horror), or cough up like $90 a week (what would actually happen) because every other web page tries to show me 2GB of video in ads alone, as if I'm going to patronize any business that blasts a cacaphony of unwanted sound in my face when I'm trying to read, all of which I suspect might be a concerted effort orchestrated as part of a conspiracy between advertisers and ISP's to poison net neutral rate plans and price gouge the hell out of anyone using their phone for internet related things, aka: everyone.
And, as an addendum, all this ties directly into your mention of <img/> versus $ajax();
First of all, that very mindset is the foundation of the bloat we see everywhere else. Complicate a non-problem with a non-solution, because behind the trend is really a desire to shun open standards, in favor of obfuscating intellectual property as an effort to lock user behaviors, and prevent scrapers from ripping off designs that aren't even innovative. An example of the backlash against this sort of thing was the re-adoption of semantic and/or restful URL paths, because so many back-end goons were packing query strings with hundreds of CGI variable parameters, to control page state that no one could paste or email links to each other, and even advertisers started framing a renormalization of URLs under the SEO buzzword, because they saw their page rank taking hits from the drop in sharability.
Second, once you introduce $ajax(), not only does backwards compatibility hang in doubt (as you mentioned) but cross-browser compatibility and forward compatibility may also be sacrificed. Not to mention, you branch into an entirely different area of development. Because in order to make sure everything works everywhere, all the time, you'll need an ajax library, but which one? Choose carefully, you may seal you fate, if the maintainers disappear. Not only that, any JS error for any reason at all, including async resource errors, could kill alllllllllll of your images. So now we need unit tests and a QA team? Is that right? Gee, why not just use <img/> tags, like every browser has supported by default, since... oh... the mid 90's?
First of all, that very mindset is the foundation of the bloat we see everywhere else. Complicate a non-problem with a non-solution, because behind the trend is really a desire to shun open standards, in favor of obfuscating intellectual property as an effort to lock user behaviors, and prevent scrapers from ripping off designs that aren't even innovative. An example of the backlash against this sort of thing was the re-adoption of semantic and/or restful URL paths, because so many back-end goons were packing query strings with hundreds of CGI variable parameters, to control page state that no one could paste or email links to each other, and even advertisers started framing a renormalization of URLs under the SEO buzzword, because they saw their page rank taking hits from the drop in sharability.
Second, once you introduce $ajax(), not only does backwards compatibility hang in doubt (as you mentioned) but cross-browser compatibility and forward compatibility may also be sacrificed. Not to mention, you branch into an entirely different area of development. Because in order to make sure everything works everywhere, all the time, you'll need an ajax library, but which one? Choose carefully, you may seal you fate, if the maintainers disappear. Not only that, any JS error for any reason at all, including async resource errors, could kill alllllllllll of your images. So now we need unit tests and a QA team? Is that right? Gee, why not just use <img/> tags, like every browser has supported by default, since... oh... the mid 90's?
You make it seem as though AJAX is some unstable, bleeding edge experimental feature that no one ever uses. There's no danger of sacrificing backwards compatibility, or of browsers no longer supporting AJAX in the future.
However, Hacker News does use AJAX, and I don't think it even uses whatever img tag trick OP is referring to. The only img tags on the page are the icon and the vote arrows. If it's there, I couldn't find it.
But read the javascript yourself - AJAX support is just a single, simple function. No unit tests and QA team, no depending on some flaky maintainer. Maybe they do unit tests, I don't know, this place is kind of a black box sometimes.
However, Hacker News does use AJAX, and I don't think it even uses whatever img tag trick OP is referring to. The only img tags on the page are the icon and the vote arrows. If it's there, I couldn't find it.
But read the javascript yourself - AJAX support is just a single, simple function. No unit tests and QA team, no depending on some flaky maintainer. Maybe they do unit tests, I don't know, this place is kind of a black box sometimes.
I think he's annoyed that lots of people are trying to re-implement the wheel using a poor AJAX based solution when an older solution is better, but no one likes using anything "old".
AJAX is not really a new thing, though. It's probably older than some of the developers who complain about it.
It's still implemented differently across different browsers, past and present, and despite being mature it isn't exactly future proof.
Cross-browser AJAX is= a solved problem at this point. You can just go to Stack Overflow or find one of countless libraries to handle it to whatever degree of compatibility you want.
And all code is a moving target - nothing is future proof, especially where javascript is involved, but AJAX seems a lot more future proof than hacking image tags to do something other than loading images. It's baked into front-end templates and the caching strategies of the biggest sites on the web so it's not likely to go anywhere anytime soon.
And all code is a moving target - nothing is future proof, especially where javascript is involved, but AJAX seems a lot more future proof than hacking image tags to do something other than loading images. It's baked into front-end templates and the caching strategies of the biggest sites on the web so it's not likely to go anywhere anytime soon.
See, this is the problem with the mindset of many web developers. You point out several things that makes this website work well, so you actually answers your own question, but I read between the lines that you think HN has to be "modernized" and I have learned this usually means
something with infinite scrolling, Javascript required for simple things like displaying text and pictures, lots of whitespace, bloat and many other things that would make me
prefer leprosy over using the site.
The web world would be a much better place if you web developers would rather ask "Why are modern websites so shitty and bloated" instead of wondering why one of the few useable sites left have not yet been "modernized".
The web world would be a much better place if you web developers would rather ask "Why are modern websites so shitty and bloated" instead of wondering why one of the few useable sites left have not yet been "modernized".
Even a CSS change with better typography & legibility would go a long way. You wouldn't have to "modernize" the site.
Screen resolutions and pixel density have increased dramatically since HN was designed. It could at least use a fresh coat of paint :)
Screen resolutions and pixel density have increased dramatically since HN was designed. It could at least use a fresh coat of paint :)
> Even a CSS change with better typography & legibility would go a long way.
About 99.98% of HN readers are capable of writing custom CSS rules.
I'd be sympathetic if people were saying HN isn't accessible.
About 99.98% of HN readers are capable of writing custom CSS rules.
I'd be sympathetic if people were saying HN isn't accessible.
Exactly this. And People seems to want to Web "Apps" everything, but it turns out 90% of site are actually fine with Web "Pages" with a little interactively added on top.
>but I read between the lines that you think HN has to be "modernized" and I have learned this usually means something with infinite scrolling, Javascript required for simple things like displaying text and pictures, lots of whitespace, bloat and many other things that would make me prefer leprosy over using the site.
Many here seem do read between those lines, but modernity and bloat are not synonymous, although for some reason Hacker News seems to believe so, despite knowing better.
This site does get updates, though, and many seem to lead people to clutch their pearls for fear that the staff changed one thing too many and the spell is broken and the slide towards Reddit is inevitable. Links used to break if they sat in your cache for too long - that was a bug, the staff admitted it was a bug, yet people here insisted it was necessary to maintain intellectual quality. This community fetishizes the layout of this web forum to a weird degree.
Yes, the site is minimalist and loads quickly. It would also be minimalist and would load quickly with modern HTML and a more readable stylesheet.
Many here seem do read between those lines, but modernity and bloat are not synonymous, although for some reason Hacker News seems to believe so, despite knowing better.
This site does get updates, though, and many seem to lead people to clutch their pearls for fear that the staff changed one thing too many and the spell is broken and the slide towards Reddit is inevitable. Links used to break if they sat in your cache for too long - that was a bug, the staff admitted it was a bug, yet people here insisted it was necessary to maintain intellectual quality. This community fetishizes the layout of this web forum to a weird degree.
Yes, the site is minimalist and loads quickly. It would also be minimalist and would load quickly with modern HTML and a more readable stylesheet.
This is what upsets me with the current 'design world'. Everyone has to keep 'updating' everything with no real need or understanding as to why it needs updating. It's just an attempt to stay trendy.
I don't see any problems with this site that need a design solution to improve. Information is legible and easy to digest, it's quickly accessible on every device I have, and there's no unnecessary fluff that causes distractions or additional load times.
What issues have you identified that need solutions?
I don't see any problems with this site that need a design solution to improve. Information is legible and easy to digest, it's quickly accessible on every device I have, and there's no unnecessary fluff that causes distractions or additional load times.
What issues have you identified that need solutions?
The simplicity of the experience, nothing is there to tantalize the viewer in a manipulating fashion. If you read HN's Vision statement they also state that HN isn't designed to consume you in a way that Reddit or Facebook does. It's meant to be a culmination of relevant information, and topics that allow you to take a break from your work while still stimulating your mind. In comparison with say.. Facebook where everything you read has to be taken with a grain of salt, and has absolutely no foot to stand on in terms of credibility or substance. You can go to HN and browse lightly and enjoy yourself.
If you make an account on the website they also have a function that allows you only to use it for a certain time duration daily (or something of that nature) Because they realize that the world around us is already distracting to a very dark degree, and it's meant to be enjoyable but never to consume your attention at a level that effects your work.
It's fresh, it's simple and beautiful.
If you make an account on the website they also have a function that allows you only to use it for a certain time duration daily (or something of that nature) Because they realize that the world around us is already distracting to a very dark degree, and it's meant to be enjoyable but never to consume your attention at a level that effects your work.
It's fresh, it's simple and beautiful.
imo, the design of HN emphasizes the text, anything fancier and it would take away from this. You can look at reddits new redesign as an example. I have a lot of trouble navigating the new reddit due to a few reasons, a big one I'm sure is that I'm just not used to it, but I'd say overall the new redesign de-emphasizes, and that's a damn shame.
Except code that needs to be scrolled 5km to the right, and text with little to no contrast. And the default font size is very small.
Neither of these are dealbreakers, but it definitely could be improved IMO.
Neither of these are dealbreakers, but it definitely could be improved IMO.
One thing I like about hn is I can load up a bunch of long comment threads right before I get on a plane and have something to read for the whole flight. Other sites will pull tricks like automatically attempting to reload when I return them to focus, or will have their content smeared across a dozen pages, each filled with heavy images and scripts.
Or even when you have massive GB$ fee's for onboard wifi on a flight, it'd cost next to nothing to bring up HN and casually read through threads such as this.
When I first visited HM, my sentiments were the same.
'What on earth is this fucking thing? A site... for developers... that looks like it was written as a HTML text editor without the frills?'
Over time my position has completely changed and I now adore HN for the charm of it's minimalist impression.
Don't fix what isn't broken.
When I first visited HM, my sentiments were the same.
'What on earth is this fucking thing? A site... for developers... that looks like it was written as a HTML text editor without the frills?'
Over time my position has completely changed and I now adore HN for the charm of it's minimalist impression.
Don't fix what isn't broken.
Paul Graham commented on this in an essay, back in 2009:
> So the most important thing a community site can do is attract the kind of people it wants. A site trying to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. But a site aiming at a particular subset of users has to attract just those—and just as importantly, repel everyone else. I've made a conscious effort to do this on HN. The graphic design is as plain as possible, and the site rules discourage dramatic link titles. The goal is that the only thing to interest someone arriving at HN for the first time should be the ideas expressed there.
(http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html)
> So the most important thing a community site can do is attract the kind of people it wants. A site trying to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. But a site aiming at a particular subset of users has to attract just those—and just as importantly, repel everyone else. I've made a conscious effort to do this on HN. The graphic design is as plain as possible, and the site rules discourage dramatic link titles. The goal is that the only thing to interest someone arriving at HN for the first time should be the ideas expressed there.
(http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html)
PG's view on this is, frankly, odd and kind of condescending.
No one is drawn to a particular website merely because of the stylesheet or UI, it's always because the content and the community interests them - vapid and mainstream that content may be. There would be no rush of mainstream users to Hacker News with a more modern layout, nor would mainstream users be repelled by its simplicity. Mainstream users don't come here because they don't even know the site exists and if they did, it would have nothing to interest them. Yet apparently PG thinks most web users are basically magpies drawn to shiny things.
No one is drawn to a particular website merely because of the stylesheet or UI, it's always because the content and the community interests them - vapid and mainstream that content may be. There would be no rush of mainstream users to Hacker News with a more modern layout, nor would mainstream users be repelled by its simplicity. Mainstream users don't come here because they don't even know the site exists and if they did, it would have nothing to interest them. Yet apparently PG thinks most web users are basically magpies drawn to shiny things.
> No one is drawn to a particular website merely because of the stylesheet or UI
I was. The minimalism of the site has always appealed to me.
Internet forums are not only their content and community, but also their mechanics and their rules.
I was. The minimalism of the site has always appealed to me.
Internet forums are not only their content and community, but also their mechanics and their rules.
But if you had encountered the same community with the same level of discourse on a site with a modern layout, would that really have mattered?
If the modern layout was slow, yes.
There are a lot of sites with good content I don't visit. Much of the reason is they'll eat my mobile battery, data, or both. If I'm in a place with poor signal I can still browse HN in general. The snappyness and content keep me coming back.
There are a lot of sites with good content I don't visit. Much of the reason is they'll eat my mobile battery, data, or both. If I'm in a place with poor signal I can still browse HN in general. The snappyness and content keep me coming back.
Fair enough, but it seems what PG was describing was aesthetics, not necessarily performance.
That's a very hypothetical question. I think the architecture of a communal website shapes its community (after all, it exists before the community). The design decisions of HN are distinct from say, Reddit: the are no subreddits, comment karma isn't visible, stricter rules, etc. The less-is-more rationale attracts a certain kind of personality.
Funny enough, this comes up fairly often. The basicish feel of the site belies its true nature, and it's downright intentional. Also, only brainy smarties would intentionally go to a 90's looking website to talk about technology and whatever else nerds and geeks discuss.
The negative sentiment usually comes from front-end oriented folks that have things twisted. I'm not disparaging, simply noting on my observation.
The negative sentiment usually comes from front-end oriented folks that have things twisted. I'm not disparaging, simply noting on my observation.
Not sure if this is still true (checking...): HN is implemented in Arc.
HN was created as part- YC project, part- functional demo of Arc, a lang Paul Graham developed (a Lisp, in Racket).
http://paulgraham.com/arc.html
HN was created as part- YC project, part- functional demo of Arc, a lang Paul Graham developed (a Lisp, in Racket).
http://paulgraham.com/arc.html
Still true!
That's really cool! Then, to clarify what I was hinting at above - my guess as to (1) why there's some quirky html/css usage and (2) why so little has changed over the years:
#1 is probably due to Arc.
#2 is probably due to Arc doing such a good job, still.
(please correct me if I'm wrong, @dang)
#1 is probably due to Arc.
#2 is probably due to Arc doing such a good job, still.
(please correct me if I'm wrong, @dang)
I imagine Op's question being brought up at some early morning staff meeting at YC headquarters:
Ohh and and one last thing everyone. Does anyone here who groks Arc want to make it their priority to start hacking around with Paul Graham's Arc code, which helps render our extremely popular social forum for hackers, with content that loads on both desktop and mobile at blazing speeds, and with nothing in particular actually broken?
(I don't imagine a lot of hands going up)
Ohh and and one last thing everyone. Does anyone here who groks Arc want to make it their priority to start hacking around with Paul Graham's Arc code, which helps render our extremely popular social forum for hackers, with content that loads on both desktop and mobile at blazing speeds, and with nothing in particular actually broken?
(I don't imagine a lot of hands going up)
No, sctb and I are pretty avid Arc programmers. We were Lisp programmers before that, so it was a natural step.
This was the only other logical scenario ;) Glad to have u both steering this ship
Some of the weird html is weird because it's generated from Arc, i.e. it's really object code. The source code is the Arc s-exprs that generate it, and it's not so weird. The css isn't generated from Arc though.
HN does get updates occasionally, e.g. the mobile width change that happened a couple of years ago. I suppose there hasn't been a pressing need to make any changes.
If any sweeping redesign occurred the entire userbase would surely be angry.
If any sweeping redesign occurred the entire userbase would surely be angry.
There does seem to be a need for better methods of quoting. I've seen people quote text with code blocks that look absolutely abysmal on mobile.
Most people seem to end up doing it 4chan style, sans the highlighting 4chan provides.
Other than that though, yea- HN isn't in dire need of changes. There are alternative frontends if you want them, though. I like the chronological fixation of http://hckrnews.com
Most people seem to end up doing it 4chan style, sans the highlighting 4chan provides.
Other than that though, yea- HN isn't in dire need of changes. There are alternative frontends if you want them, though. I like the chronological fixation of http://hckrnews.com
Quoting with a greater than sign, which is what I infer you are talking about, pre-dates 4chan by years. It was used on Usenet long before 4chan even existed.
Eric S. Raymond blamed it on an attempt to simulate having tabstops in every column, i.e. 1 character wide tabs.
* http://catb.org/jargon/html/email-style.html
Eric S. Raymond blamed it on an attempt to simulate having tabstops in every column, i.e. 1 character wide tabs.
* http://catb.org/jargon/html/email-style.html
Certainly. But I think the gp is referring to the idea of putting a single greater-than sign at the beginning of a long, soft-wrapped paragraph. 4chan (and other sites) would highlight the whole paragraph, but on HN if it is very long it isn't immediately obvious that it's a quote. Hard-wrapping the quote and putting a greater-than sign in front of each line, as in email or Usenet is much clearer than the style typically used on HN.
That sort of quoting long pre-dates 4chan, too. It's the Fidonet convention for paragraphing.
I would love that pinching and zooming-in with my phone screen would not only make the text bigger and easier to read, but also rearrange it to fit in the screem. But it doesn't.
It is great that they are keeping it simple. Keeps the front and the backend fast.
I appreciate the fact that HN is really lightweight, but the HTML and CSS are still pretty bloated for what they do.
e.g. Nested layout tables, using images for padding, multiple media queries to set comment widths, repeated font-family definitions — all unnecessary.
e.g. Nested layout tables, using images for padding, multiple media queries to set comment widths, repeated font-family definitions — all unnecessary.
Yes but there are things like ajax that wouldn't add any bloat, and in fact would eliminate a lot of weird and vestigial code
What code? The only JS I get is less than 5k, and the only css is 7k. That's not a lot to begin with, and I'm skeptical that adding AJAX wouldn't add bloat.
whats broken? Also this site is the very few that load no problem with poor/slow connection.
"old-fashioned"? That's a misnomer, imo. A website should be judged based on form and function, and HN looks and works great for me. Does it not for you?
I don't think it is wrong to say it is old-fashioned. It literally uses things that went out of fashion a long time ago (tables, not using ajax, design is not 'modern').
Not saying it doesn't work or event that these things makes it a 'bad' website.
Not saying it doesn't work or event that these things makes it a 'bad' website.
don't fix what ain't broken
Less IS more. Just love HN for that. If you want something more stimulating for your senses, go watch a movie.
I have no problem with the layout, design or lack of javascript, in fact i like it, but think I there are several real functional flaws in this site which are annoying.
Why is there no search function? You have to go to a third party site to search hacker news. Why can you only go back 3-4 pages of articles? Why is there no mention of the formatting available to you when writing a post? I think you have to browse the FAQs to get that data?
Even just now I had to login after writing this post and clicking "add comment", once I logged in the post I had written was no longer in the form! This is basic stuff guys.
Those are some issues which would be as true today as they were 10 or 20 years ago.
Why is there no search function? You have to go to a third party site to search hacker news. Why can you only go back 3-4 pages of articles? Why is there no mention of the formatting available to you when writing a post? I think you have to browse the FAQs to get that data?
Even just now I had to login after writing this post and clicking "add comment", once I logged in the post I had written was no longer in the form! This is basic stuff guys.
Those are some issues which would be as true today as they were 10 or 20 years ago.
The only thing that needs a tiny bit of work is how the website works on mobile devices. The voting arrows and collapse [-] links are too small for fat fingers, and the top menu could also do with increasing in size. No need for some mystery meat burger menu, just increase the text size of the menu item, size and padding(?) of the arrows and the collapse links when on narrow viewports.
I would argue the only significant area for improvement is in fact the compactness. There is too little whitespace on the listing pages to easily read the links, the fonts are small and the lines of text are too long. The latter can be fixed by browser zooming-in, if you want to make your users take actions to read your content, the former needs css.
The only thing missing for me was tracking seen/read stories/comments, so I added it myself https://github.com/raszpl/hackahackernews
Can you elaborate on the <img> tag instead of ajax for asyc requests?
As a fashion designer, I cannot fathom why people wear T-shirts, jeans and deck sneakers. I mean, I do get about how you don't have to spend 45 minutes getting ready to go out, ...
It's not old fashioned... it's great.
You said it yourself
You said it yourself
I actually like the site a lot it displays well in lynx. I did wish there was a way to up vote posts on lynx though.
HN is my favourite site because its 'old-fashioned'
People come here for the content and not for the UI.
We like it this way
Young devs - learn minimalism. Discover what fast means.
[deleted]
It's nice in some respects - pages load extremely quickly and the layout is compact and to-the-point. I was starting to think it was just minimalist by choice and not actually outdated, but then someone mentioned that async requests are done through an <img> tag instead of ajax, so now I'm wondering what the story is there?
Has it just been left alone because it's not broken? Or because they're worried people would get upset about changes? Or for maximum backward-compatibility? I'm not complaining; I'm just really curious.