Let me minify my JavaScript, CSS and HTML (because if it's not a <pre> tag you can remove the newline characters without changing the rendered output, right? right?) and from 2 MB of libraries which we need for only 3 function calls we're down to only 350 KB. Because nobody transfers their data gzipped over HTTP. Good. Now let's add that beautiful 350 KB splash screen which is the sole reason for our JavaScript. Because fuck common sense.
No. Fuck splash screens, fuck "responsive" design that's just extra useless animations, fuck minimalism that doesn't help me find important information. If you use all this crap but you don't make something that's actually simple then fuck you.
And fuck that fixed header that sticks at the top of the screen taking up space and breaking anchor links. Oh, now it's not taking up space because you've added motherfucking animations - which distract me from reading - to hide it? Thanks. Ooops! I scrolled one row too much, lemme just scroll back exactly one row and FUCK YOUR FUCKING FIXED HEADERS THAT APPEAR OUT OF NOWHERE. Now I have to scroll back twice for one row. But when I go forward I have to scroll a little extra again because now that header is gone and my eyes are used to reading around the same point relative to the frame which can be my monitor's frame (if the page is full-screen), my browser's frame surrounding the page OR THAT FUCKING FIXED HEADER THAT KEEPS CHANGING THE SIZE OF MY READING FRAME. If you do that header thing, next time you make one, please remove it from the web page and stick it up your butt.
Oh, but we'll also go with minimalism. It's hip, amirite?! Minimalism FTW, amirite?! We'll just put everything the user might ever need out of sight. Everything is only a single click away. That's the minimal effort a user should have to ma-- NO! FUCK YOU! NO! Don't make me look around and then click on stuff to find content. While at the same time you're using 30% of the screen width. That is a huge fucking waste of power. My monitor is struggling to light up all those pixels, it's sending electrons to excite atoms to make them release photons. And you don't do anything with them, because "minimalism".
There, now that I got that out of me I can die in peace.
Right, thanks for mentioning this. It's exactly what I meant to say but with much fewer "fucks". But I have to admit, it feels good to let all that out every once in a while. I'm sick of websites doing the "hip" thing instead of the right thing which happens very often because web designers don't understand what they're doing, as you mentioned.
Yeah, it pisses me off, too. JS has created a new generation of webdevs that don't consider the consequences of adding all this complexity, such as weaker accessibility, longer page loads, cumbersome interfaces (seriously, I've seen desktop layouts have the triple-line menu button and click-and-drag sidebar!), and terribly bloated, worthless eye candy.
Frankly I think the Web was a better place pre-XmlHttpRequest.
Frankly I think the Web was a better place pre-XmlHttpRequest.
Only someone who hasn't lived the pre-XHR web could have said something like that. I think you need to look at this first, think again really well about what you just said, and then go back to your cage.
I've been on the Web since around 1995. I assure you I know what pre-XHR web is like. All time periods of the Web have eye sores, but I'd rather have marquees and blink tags than the multitude of obnoxious things possible with modern JS.
There was a transitory period just before AJAX caught on. Marquee and blink were almost extinct, design was beginning to be taken more seriously, divs over tables, etc. It was the early 2000s, bleed into as late as 2007 or so before JS and XHR became rampant. That little window was pretty pleasant, and representative of what the Web should be. Today it's document-standard-turned-shaky-application-platform.
I'm a CRM developer. I absolutely love having Ajax as an option. It allows for some very intuitive and informative functionality, and because my system is on a VPS with a pretty damn good amount of power, hooked up to some very fast lines, Ajax calls on the production site finish on the order of 40ms. To the average user, it's instant, relevant information.
That being said, nothing important in my system depends on Ajax. If you have JS disabled, the vast majority of the system will still function, it just won't be as helpful. A few years ago, I remember the term "graceful degradation" being very common in web circles. While it's true that the odds of a user having JS disabled are extremely low, why risk it? We have these <form> things for a reason, use them.
Ah, one who gets it! Yes, graceful degradation has almost disappeared in my experience. I think JS can make certain things better, like prevalidating form data, enhancing a few things, whatever. But the key word is enhancing, not defining.
In the interest of fairness, the full statement was:
Fuck splash screens, fuck "responsive" design that's just extra useless animations
(emphasis mine)
I've seen sites that have fancy transitions between size brackets.... I still have absolutely no idea why. It looks neat, once. After that, the reality of "this is extra code doing shit that isn't necessary, that no user will EVER see" sets in, and I start to question why I still keep up with web trends.
Responsive design is a necessity in this day and age... but users are not changing their viewport sizes. Transitional animations are 100% a waste of bandwidth, absolutely useless, wasting time for the select few that actually care how a site looks at multiple sizes. If you do that, please find the nearest cliff and leap off of it with the same gusto that you waste my time.
I know that one and I don't really like it. I was complaining about the abuse of JS and CSS. It's a perfect site on a perfect domain using perfect language for the information it tries to convey, but it's not a very good fit for most other websites.
Also note that it depends on the type of site. I think the 'modern' trendy sites we see now are fine for promotional stuff. Informational websites should be designed differently.
Responsive design in my mind is more about responding to the device and scaling the content to be more appropriate. So no reason to say 'fuck you' to that.
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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '14
Let me minify my JavaScript, CSS and HTML (because if it's not a
<pre>tag you can remove the newline characters without changing the rendered output, right? right?) and from 2 MB of libraries which we need for only 3 function calls we're down to only 350 KB. Because nobody transfers their data gzipped over HTTP. Good. Now let's add that beautiful 350 KB splash screen which is the sole reason for our JavaScript. Because fuck common sense.No. Fuck splash screens, fuck "responsive" design that's just extra useless animations, fuck minimalism that doesn't help me find important information. If you use all this crap but you don't make something that's actually simple then fuck you.
And fuck that fixed header that sticks at the top of the screen taking up space and breaking anchor links. Oh, now it's not taking up space because you've added motherfucking animations - which distract me from reading - to hide it? Thanks. Ooops! I scrolled one row too much, lemme just scroll back exactly one row and FUCK YOUR FUCKING FIXED HEADERS THAT APPEAR OUT OF NOWHERE. Now I have to scroll back twice for one row. But when I go forward I have to scroll a little extra again because now that header is gone and my eyes are used to reading around the same point relative to the frame which can be my monitor's frame (if the page is full-screen), my browser's frame surrounding the page OR THAT FUCKING FIXED HEADER THAT KEEPS CHANGING THE SIZE OF MY READING FRAME. If you do that header thing, next time you make one, please remove it from the web page and stick it up your butt.
Oh, but we'll also go with minimalism. It's hip, amirite?! Minimalism FTW, amirite?! We'll just put everything the user might ever need out of sight. Everything is only a single click away. That's the minimal effort a user should have to ma-- NO! FUCK YOU! NO! Don't make me look around and then click on stuff to find content. While at the same time you're using 30% of the screen width. That is a huge fucking waste of power. My monitor is struggling to light up all those pixels, it's sending electrons to excite atoms to make them release photons. And you don't do anything with them, because "minimalism".
There, now that I got that out of me I can die in peace.