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0 pointswillsmith721y ago0 comments

you would be in the minority then, most people these days want (and expect) live feedback if the action's result is predictable enough

e.g. throttle your network and upvote a hn comment. you're not sitting there waiting with a spinner while the server responds, it's all in the background.

the hn implementation isn't great though - if the upvote request fails, the optimistic update isn't rolled back, and you have no knowledge that it failed. for hn, who cares, it's just a lost upvote, but for most modern web apps you would show the user that the action failed

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OJFord1y ago

If you're (would be) 'sitting there waiting with a spinner' then that endpoint is too slow, regardless of what the frontend does in the meantime.

willsmith72OP1y ago

depends on the definition of "slow". unless you have servers and databases everywhere (overkill for 99% of apps), your endpoint will be probably be >400ms for some people somewhere, enough to feel as a user.

that's without accounting for patchy reception (in a tunnel?), network blips, server blips (overworked?), etc.

i'm not saying everything should be optimistic, but for something like a hn upvote, i dont care if my public wifi freaked out and took 3 seconds for that 1 request, and i think more people are like that than not

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