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Does anyone else finding the 'inspirational' quote loading spinner super frustrating? Is there a technical reason we need a loading spinner?

Hopefully this doesn't come across as passive aggressive as that isn't my goal, as someone who uses this site quite a lot having to wait 1/2 seconds all the time is very frustrating.

#meta

cc @csallen

  1. 3

    No, it's really annoying. I don't really get why it's there. Vapid, contextless, "inspirational" quotes is exactly the thing the "startup scene" should move away from. Also, it makes the site slow to use.

  2. 1

    I hate the quotes, too. I think they're there to mask the slow page loading speeds.

  3. 1

    It's because IH is a single-page app, similar to Facebook/Gmail/Asana/etc. The loading screen would be there anyway, but imo it's better with a quote rather than a loading icon.

    In hindsight, I wish I had not built IH as a single-page app. But rebuilding it from scratch is not an option any time soon. More realistic options:

    1. Continually improve loading speeds, so the loading/quote screen gets shorter and shorter.
    2. Re-implement server-side rendering. This doesn't fix much, as you'll still have to download and render the JS for the single-page app, but it could replace the loading screen with a "fake" temporary UI while the app boots up.
    3. One page at at time, transition the site away from being a single-page app. (Not yet sure if this is possible.)

    Working on #1 at the moment.

    cc @tnolet

    1. 1

      I totally get that path dependence thing.

      One tip for Gmail:

      You can use a plugin to toggle the enabling of JavaScript on a per-page basis. For just a quick check of your inbox, that's an easy way past their loading screen.

    2. 1

      I guess it's a bit of "between a rock and a hard place" situation. I get that just a spinner is also boring. I also get that the quotes are teasers for the full articles, totally fine. It's just being greeted by the dude that is doing $133M every time is sort of demotivating. Might be just me.

      Long story short: let's improve the loading speed! Happy to help!

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