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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   4079 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 7, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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They also do some shitty "modern webdev" stuff with the comments.

I can understand loading the comments on page load. That's what we did back when I was web-adjacent, but I understand the limitations.

I can understand loading the comments when you scroll to the end of the article and maybe even push a "load comments" button. Articles are cheap to load and render, comments are not.

What Substack does instead is reserve enough page space for the comments, but it only renders (or loads and renders) them when you scroll to the right spot. Not only does this fail if the connection is lost, but it's also incredibly slow and turns my phone into a hot plate every time I try to skim through the comments or scroll back.

Oh yes, that reminds me - if I tab away from a Substack page, when I go back, the page hangs on a blank display for a second or so before appearing again. Including if I'm nowhere near the comments, which I mostly don't read anyways. No idea what they're doing there, but it can't be good.

This happens to me too, which is a real pain on a phone.

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