š£ Discourse 1.2 incoming! č»£
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Where is fa-spin when you need it?
Filed Under: you spin my tape (measure) right round, baby, right round~
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<img src="/uploads/default/14590/8c93d4376ad3217b.png" width="74" height="500">
What do you use to generate it? Some webdev tool I'm missing?
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IE's dev tools used to have an on-screen ruler. I wonder if they still do...
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They vote with their wallet, which is all that's important to a business owner. IT-savvy business owners like @Polygeekery and @FrostCat are unfortunately in the minority.
I would not necessarily agree with you. In the next year, I will likely have a need for a forum for a RoR project and it is quite likely that we will use Discourse. Why you may ask?
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Yeah, it kind of sucks in some ways, but not in ways that matter to the plebs. Businesses have forums to facilitate communication with their clients and customers. For basic functionality, it works really well.
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One of our most frequent complaints is about the shitty parser. Well, plebs don't use advanced formatting and HTML chicanery the way we do. So that point is moo.
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I have made peace with Infiniscroll. For long topics, it still sucks in many ways, but there are work arounds. Also, this would be a support forum so the chances of any topic getting past one page are relatively low. Before it got to that point, it would be easier and more productive to just pick up the phone and call them.
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Likely our most frequent complaints is due to shitty performance and 504's, etc. Well, I would not be hosting on a small droplet on Digital Ocean. It would be sitting in a VM sharing an ample amount of resources with other low usage utilities. No worries there. Also, an ample amount of disk space would take care of the log issue. Most of the performance issues could easily be handled by upping the resources. But, that costs more money and I doubt that @apapadimoulis wants to spend more money for this forum just so we can troll each other more efficiently. ;)
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A lot of the issues we were having are much better now that we are off the canary build. Now, that does not excuse the canary build because I have been using Chrome Canary at @codinghorror's suggestion for a couple of months now and have yet to find a bug in it even though he told me I would, but whatever. The issues that do remain (shitty parser, that no plebs will be using) do not apply to the vast majority of people who would be the end users. As for high resource usage, etc...who besides us would be keeping Discourse tabs open for days at a time and constantly interacting with it to the point that RAM usage would get out of control? Not likely very many people.
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The number one reason to use it though, is because most of the stuff that we hate, plebs will absolutely eat up. There is a reason that @codinghorror and @sam have done what they have, that is what the public wants. Facebook and LinkedIn are total rubbish, but millions of people use them. Discourse has too much fucking whitespace, but apparently people dig that because you see it everywhere now.
With all that said, the buggy as fuck parser still annoys me. If they added a "quit fucking with my shit" button that I could click to put in whatever text I wanted without it thinking it knows best, I would be a lot happier. Overall though, it is still a shitload better than CS was. As for WP having issues...I don't have a WP and Android performance is a lot better than it was. Also, I find it amusing that Discourse rankles @blakeyrat so much. ;)
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Whoosh? Or are you making a joke?
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You meant that point is moot?
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I Jeff'd 2 posts to a new topic: Mooooooooooooooo
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@rad131304 said:
I don't mind NOT loading posts you skipped past, but you can make a reasonable guess as to how tall those posts are. How about just a default height empty div? It would make the scrollbar a lot less jumpy and useless.
I actually wouldn't mind having some fine-tuned control on how many posts are loaded for a given topic, configurable per-device. On a desktop PC, I might have it preload the first 100 posts of a topic and keep the entire DOM in memory so it's super quick to scroll around, whereas on mobile, I may only keep 5 or so posts resident for a smaller memory footprint (but slower navigation throughout the whole thread...)
Unfortunately it's pretty much impossible to "detect" mobile vs. PC. The best you could manage is small vs. large screen. While that usually means mobile vs PC, there are low memory devices that have large screens (e.g. a Raspberry Pi). You could give the option to set and save the info browser side, but if they purge local storage or cookies you lose the setting and that could annoy users.
Ultimately, any attempt to optimize for low memory devices will ultimately fail in some way because the browser never announces this issue to the server. The browser is even allowed to lie about its "identity" (the user agent). It might even be a security risk if the browser did announce itself as a low-resource device.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but any solution is just a hack because you're always just looking at proxies for memory and cpu capacity.
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How about a cookie that keeps track of what you set it to through the UI?
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How about a cookie that keeps track of what you set it to through the UI?
Some of us delete all cookies on browser exit? How do you propose to respawn the cookie into a specific browser when the cookie gets deleted? What happens if the cookie is deleted and the user agent changes between visits? How do you tell the difference between Chrome on a low memory Raspberry Pi and Chrome on an Ubuntu laptop?
I mean, there's always HSTS zombie cookies, but I think you can even purge HSTS settings so ... ?
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If you delete your settings every time you reboot your computer, that's your problem.
You disabling a core feature of your web browser isn't my problem. It's your problem.
Anyway, just click the button to set the setting again. It's annoying, but then, so is having to log into the website every time you open a web browser on your own computer. Because you delete cookies.
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If you delete your settings every time you reboot your computer, that's your problem.
You disabling a core feature of your web browser isn't my problem. It's your problem.
Anyway, just click the button to set the setting again. It's annoying, but then, so is having to log into the website every time you open a web browser on your own computer. Because you delete cookies.
It's a feature that gets abused by advertising companies. If they didn't act like such bastards, I wouldn't need to have it off by default.
Edit: also, what is the default setting, aggressive or lazy DOM unloading?
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If you don't want ads, use adblock.
If you want ads, but you don't like ads that are relevant to you in any way, wat
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If you don't want ads, use adblock.
If you want ads, but you don't like ads that are relevant to you in any way, <small><small>wat</small></small>
Uh, because I also use adblock?
Adblock is a blacklist. I prefer the whitelist approach.
Edit: that's not true, I don't really use an adblock - I use a tracking blocker (which often does the same thing). I don't mind advertisements: websites get paid with them, and I support a free web so I'm fine with getting advertisements. What I'm not fine with is getting stalked by advertising companies.
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So whitelist the cookie that stores the number of posts you want to load at a time, then. It's that simple. Don't try to complicate things.
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So whitelist the cookie that stores the number of posts you want to load at a time, then. It's that simple. Don't try to complicate things.
What happens if I'm not logged in? What happens when I log in from a new device?
I'm not trying to complicate things. I'm telling you that the user has control over their device, and you should stop making assumptions about how they will use your software because it's how you use your software. Jeffing out on them makes you a bad programmer.
Edit: obligatory @codinghorrorbot
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@rad131304 Is Doing It Wrongā¢
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You don't need to be logged in for a website to set a cookie in your browser. If you log in from a new device, you can set up your device-specific preferences from there. It doesn't make sense to persist something like "do I have enough memory on my computer to load a lot of posts" on the account level because it isn't the same on all the devices a single account is used on.
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You don't need to be logged in for a website to set a cookie in your browser.
Thanks captain obvious?
If you log in from a new device, you can set up your device-specific preferences from there.
Isn't the whole point of having profiles so that you can persist information across sessions and devices on the server? I've obviously configured my mobile preferences, why can't that be persisted at the server so when I log in from a new mobile or new PC I get those settings? Oh, because you can't actually detect mobile or PC.
It doesn't make sense to persist something like "do I have enough memory on my computer to load a lot of posts" on the account level because it isn't the same on all the devices a single account is used on.
It does if you realize that HTTP requests cost money on mobile and reducing the number and quantity of HTTP requests means you don't hit your user's bills as hard because you reduce session overhead and gzip the data.
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It doesn't make sense to persist something like "do I have enough memory on my computer to load a lot of posts"
What really doesn't make sense is asking the user a question they don't know the answer to and don't give a fuck about. You're also going to ask them to know the difference between account and device preferences, and to not complain at you when they get a new tablet that doesn't have the same preferences as the last one?
How much memory is enough? I don't even know how much RAM my phone has anyway, and I'm a technical user.
Why is the site in read-only mode WHEN I JUST WATCHED A NEW POST APPEAR RIGHT HERE?
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"How many posts do you want to load at a time?"
Most users can ignore it, but people who are Doing It Wrong can change it if they really want to. It's basically a pointless feature, but that seems like the only kind of feature allowed in Discourse anyway.
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"How many posts do you want to load at a time?"
All of them of course! Stupid computer asking me dumb questions, why wouldn't I want to read all the posts?
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Our ādropletā has some unexplained perf problems with it; I need to switch to a new one. Hopefully this will help a bit.
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Unfortunately it's pretty much impossible to "detect" mobile vs. PC.
That's why I'd want some tunable settings stored in a cookie or something. I know whether I'm using a PC or a mobile device, and I'd be the one tweaking these settings. Screen size or user agent ought to be enough to put me in the right ballpark.
Although giving users of your software controls they can use to tweak their user experience is a horrendously 1990's concept...
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Although giving users of your software controls they can use to tweak their user experience is a horrendously 1990's concept...
Well everything old is new again. What it should probably be is an attempt to auto-detect the state, with an override available per-device through a cookie.
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I'm okay with infinite scrolling as long as pushing Home takes you to the top of the page with no delay, pushing End takes you to the bottom of the page with no delay, and the scrollbar reliably indicates and controls position within the page, like on those other toxic community forums.
Oh, wait, that means always keeping the entire page in memory. I guess that's finite scrolling.
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I'm not trying to complicate things.
It sure sounds complicated. More complicated than just leaving stuff alone.
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and the scrollbar reliably indicates and controls position within the page
We have that. Well, with what's loaded.
I'm okay with infinite scrolling as long as pushing Home takes you to the top of the page with no delay, pushing End takes you to the bottom of the page with no delay
Unpossible. Not in some of our threads, anyways. Not to mention the incredible delays you'd foist on us just to see anything useful in the first place.
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Unfortunately it's pretty much impossible to "detect" mobile vs. PC. The best you could manage is small vs. large screen.
User-Agent. We are using a browser
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hmm that reminds me i still need to get those IPv6 instructions to you for the droplet move.
i found the sticky note reminding me to do it on the floor under my whiteboard yesterday.
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User-Agent. We are using a browser
Oh no you did not just suggest using the UA for this. The stupid ideas thread is... nowhere
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i found the
stickynote reminding me to do it on the floor under my whiteboard yesterday.
It can't be very sticky if it fell off
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i made the mistake of buying offbrand.
should have gotten real post-it notes
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I did, in fact, suggest using the User Agent.
I do realize that it is completely unreliable.
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Unreliable? As I've said before around here, the UA is one of the biggest WTF in the history of IT.
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Our ādropletā has some unexplained perf problems with it; I need to switch to a new one. Hopefully this will help a bit.
If what I have read is actually true, and Digital Ocean has issues that you have to move to a new droplet every once in a while to resolve, that is a WTF in itself. They should just be load balancing all of their VMs and moving things around to average the load out to make it acceptable for everyone.
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Itās never been moved before, we just speculate that hardware could be the problem.
Sometimes hardware goes interfrasticā¦ bad SSD, bad network driver, who knows what. Iād call it a copout if I didnāt see it first-hand in software I wroteā¦
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Sometimes hardware goes interfrasticā¦ bad SSD, bad network driver, who knows what. Iād call it a copout if I didnāt see it first-hand in software I wroteā¦
sometimes system config goes bad too. I've seen it before where some system setting gets tweaked by someone and absolutely hoses the system performance, but only after ticking over without issues for just long enough that too many other things have changed to find that one setting that is causing the trouble.
applying a new kernel version is my "favorite" way of finding those configuration issues (where old version tolerated it better than new version)
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Unpossible. Not in some of our threads, anyways. Not to mention the incredible delays you'd foist on us just to see anything useful in the first place.
+1 - esp. if you consider thread 1000
Paging isn't instant either in a case like this, so I don't see what standard (if any) Infiniscroll is being compared to.
I would not necessarily agree with you. In the next year, I will likely have a need for a forum for a RoR project and it is quite likely that we will use Discourse.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time. Just to be safe...
*Breaks out the crosses and the holy water*
Yeah, it kind of sucks in some ways, but not in ways that matter to the plebs.
Oh, you aren't really possessed. Never mind.
For basic functionality, it works really well.
Sounds similar to something I heard earlier....
The problem is Discourse functions in a way that many business owners would call "well enough" - i.e., it hasn't driven us away because it works well enough to allow us to post comments and have a dialogue. So here we are.
Oh right, that was it.
I have made peace with Infiniscroll. For long topics, it still sucks in many ways, but there are work arounds. Also, this would be a support forum so the chances of any topic getting past one page are relatively low. Before it got to that point, it would be easier and more productive to just pick up the phone and call them.
Good application of resources. Use the app's strengths and move away from it before (some of) its weaknesses start to show.
The number one reason to use it though, is because most of the stuff that we hate, plebs will absolutely eat up. There is a reason that @codinghorror and @sam have done what they have, that is what the public wants. Facebook and LinkedIn are total rubbish, but millions of people use them. Discourse has too much fucking whitespace, but apparently people dig that because you see it everywhere now.
Which is exactly my point before:
As for the intentional bugs, infiniscroll (as one example) isn't limited to this forum. Sites like LinkedIn and Facebook who have millions of subscribers use this "feature" too, so I don't see us realistically convincing Jeff to stop using it - especially if his target customer audience are PHBs who want the look and feel of a Facebook or LinkedIn, not "old 90's paging style" (even though it [EDIT]: paging works better). They vote with their wallet, which is all that's important to a business owner.
So without realizing it, I contradicted myself when I said:
IT-savvy business owners like @Polygeekery and @FrostCat are unfortunately in the minority.
...implying he'd never use it, since obviously there are cases like the above where @Polygeekery needs to communicate to the masses. In fact, that's probably the most common scenario. Consider me corrected and lashed with a logical wet noodle (how many points did @Polygeekery list? Oh yeah...) 6 times.
Filed under: don't try posting logical arguments when sleep deprived, you tend to miss what should be obvious.
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...implying he'd never use it, since obviously there are cases like the above where @Polygeekery needs to communicate to the masses. In fact, that's probably the most common scenario. Consider me corrected and lashed with a logical wet noodle (how many points did @Polygeekery list? Oh yeah...) 6 times.
No worries. Right tool for the job and all of that. Almost all of the things that Discourse does wrong, just don't apply to people other than power users like us. What it does right, it actually does really well.
When a business wants a forum, they typically do so to facilitate discussion with potential or current clients. The signup process for Discourse forums is a much lower barrier than the other forum products I have experience with.
All that being said, I still think it may not be the best choice for us. If for no other reason than most of us around here are predisposed to dislike anything @codinghorror has put his grubby little hands on. ;)
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It sure sounds complicated. More complicated than just leaving stuff alone.
Because the problem of reliably detecting mobile vs PC is a complicated problem? I'm not saying we should implement some form of graduated content delivery here, I'm saying that solving the mobile vs PC detection problem is hard. That's all I'm saying. That's all I've been saying. If you look back you'll see that I said I liked the idea, but that any solution would be a Steaming-Pile-O-WTF.
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Because the problem of reliably detecting mobile vs PC is a complicated problem?
Easy solution to that problem. On each page load, throw it a massive Ember function. If it shits itself, load mobile.
Now...where is that evil ideas thread again?
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Because the problem of reliably detecting mobile vs PC is a complicated problem?
What? I'm just saying that worrying about cookies and ads and all that shit is too much fucking work. Ain't nobody here got time for that.
Fiat - Wikipedia
