[gravity13]

Not that I think react+redux was a particularly great choice for reddit (given that it's mostly just static content), that post doesn't justify your conclusion that this is the bottleneck at all...

(But is new reddit slower than old reddit, in the first place?)

[JohnBooty]

Subjectively, yes. Haven't bothered to quantify, but old Reddit (which you can still use at old.reddit.com) is more responsive; comparable to HN or Craigslist or other "last of the good old web" sites.

[qxnqd]

Both take more or less the same time to show a page, they just pushed it from the backend (old reddit) to the frontend (new reddit), but I'd say it is equally slow.

I'll stick to old reddit so they pay the bill (literally) for their ineptitude.

[kick]

(But is new reddit slower than old reddit, in the first place?)

Extremely. I try to avoid complaining about the work of others, but it's genuinely so bad I have to wonder why any front-end developer at reddit has a job.

[Nextgrid]

I’d argue the disaster was caused by front-end developers. “Let’s replace a perfectly functional website with megabytes of JavaScript browsers now have to parse & execute on every single page load.”

[taurath]

Technically the framework and payload is gonna be cached by your browser. That they don't server side render anything means all that JS has to load all the content into a big engine, which takes up a bunch of network calls. Also tracking + ads.

[Nextgrid]

The framework & payload still needs to be initially loaded which can be a problem on unreliable mobile connections. Unlike a classic HTML page where a single request failing just means an image or font is missing, in this case the entire SPA won’t load and you’d be looking at a perpetual blank page.

Server-side rendering still means the browser has to parse & execute a ton of JS after the initial SSR-rendered page is loaded which is still going to be slow unless you’re running a big CPU with lots of RAM.

[vmasto]

I don't work at Reddit but I take personal offense when someone so unfairly criticizes the "working class" of a software house like that (ie the non manager level software engineers).

What makes you think that whatever is wrong with Reddit is due to lack of talent? It almost never is.

[softawre]

Why do you think software engineers never blame themselves and have such a poor opinion of their management?

[kick]

Working class? Check the compensation levels of engineers at reddit.

[vmasto]

I think you missed the fact that I'm talking relatively (i.e. within a software house as I say) and the quotes around "working class".

Still, If we want to be pedantic and literal (i.e. assume I'm talking about the Marxist definition) it still holds true, as class is not defined by compensation but by the role of the individual within the production process.

[usr1106]

I am sure those making the decisions earn more.

[zamadatix]

New Reddit is built around the idea that when you go to the next post only the content and comments sections update. When you close the post viewer you go back to the subreddit listing without having ever navigated away.

It's not a bad approach really it's just ungodly slow sometimes in places it really doesn't make sense to be so slow such as going to the next post for the 15th time still resulting in a cold load of the 15th post content and comments.