every time someone says that a web site “feels fast” you must append “on my device” to the statement and a dollar must be placed in the “works on my machine” jar

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@eeeps I have feelings about this

Melanie

@zachleat I think it’s the sign that we are getting old. We just say silly mundane obvious things, over and over and over again. ‍️

Khalid ⚡️

@zachleat not exactly a measure response

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@a11yMel I feel this deep in my bones

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@khalidabuhakmeh I measured the number of steps to the door, does that count

Amelia Bellamy-Royds

@zachleat A lot of the "perceived performance" stuff feels like a sleazy way to make sure the user doesn't notice that you're chewing through their data plan & battery lifespan.

Which might make sense, in an evil genius way, if they're using it to serve more ads or run cryptocurrency frauds in the background. But mostly it just seems to be a way to make things look snappy when you show them to executives in a boardroom to get their sign-off.

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@AmeliaBR demo driven development! Reminds me of those blur-up image techniques to trick LCP that were popular for awhile

Tom Walker

@zachleat The real achievement is to make a website that feels dog slow on *any* device you throw at it. Just an absolute mess where scrolling barely works and then the tab hangs

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@tomw well wait these are everywhere

Melanie

@zachleat my knees especially, so creaky these days

bkardell

@zachleat yeah but does it *feel* like the silliest thing, or is it measurably & demonstrably the silliest thing?

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@bkardell brian we are enemies now

Blake Watson :prami:

@zachleat feels good man

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@bw the vibes are on point

Blake Watson :prami:

@zachleat Imagine if real engineers were like “yeah this bridge feels sturdy to me, ship it.”

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@bw I ran 100 sports cars over the bridge so it should handle semi-trucks just fine

bkardell

@zachleat it only feels that way though

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@bkardell fair—we are friends again

kolya

@bw @zachleat you mean like the ancient Roman bridge engineers many of whose bridges still exist today and carry car weights that didn't even exist when they were designed? https://youtu.be/K0PA_hX8fVs