Re:The 64 Milliseconds Manifesto
by dahart on Tuesday September 24, 2019 @04:18PM
(#21064175)
> My web browser is an interactive software application and it doesn't even start up and put an about:blank page on my screen in 64 ms. Repeat this statement for literally any GUI application, the containing window don't even appear in 64 ms.
This is a straw-man. You didn't ask your web browser to open, you asked your OS. Your OS shows you the response to your request to load an app or web browser, and it shows that response immediately. The launch icon blinks, your cursor changes, and a blank frame appears all within the span of a few frames.
> And anyway, how big is a "screen?"
You get to decide. I don't think the post was meant to be taken as so extremely literal as that.
> Essentially no application follows this guideline and never will
Browsers and games already do follow this guideline. I think you're mis-reading what's here, and what's here is already generally accepted and very much used broadly. The audience for this post may be devs unfamiliar with interaction best practices, new web developers who don't think to show changes on screen before a network response, or don't want to do extra work when it seems like a .then() is completely sufficient.
> This website is more of an exercise in snark and elitism than anything else.
Why do you feel it's snarky or elitist? Is it possible you're mis-interpreting this post, or just in a bad mood? As someone who's worked in games and interactive apps, I interpret the post to mean that for user interactions, please keep performance-as-a-feature in mind. There have been many threads on HN on this over the years, and that's just a drop in the bucket compared to all the talk of how to keep interaction from being frustrating to the user.
This is a straw-man. You didn't ask your web browser to open, you asked your OS. Your OS shows you the response to your request to load an app or web browser, and it shows that response immediately. The launch icon blinks, your cursor changes, and a blank frame appears all within the span of a few frames.
> And anyway, how big is a "screen?"
You get to decide. I don't think the post was meant to be taken as so extremely literal as that.
> Essentially no application follows this guideline and never will
Browsers and games already do follow this guideline. I think you're mis-reading what's here, and what's here is already generally accepted and very much used broadly. The audience for this post may be devs unfamiliar with interaction best practices, new web developers who don't think to show changes on screen before a network response, or don't want to do extra work when it seems like a .then() is completely sufficient.
> This website is more of an exercise in snark and elitism than anything else.
Why do you feel it's snarky or elitist? Is it possible you're mis-interpreting this post, or just in a bad mood? As someone who's worked in games and interactive apps, I interpret the post to mean that for user interactions, please keep performance-as-a-feature in mind. There have been many threads on HN on this over the years, and that's just a drop in the bucket compared to all the talk of how to keep interaction from being frustrating to the user.