LWN: Comments on "Google's new open-source site"

Documentation, google-specificity, and the TODO group

yxejamir — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 13:35:47 +0000

One of the people behind it in Google was interviewed for The Changelog: 245: Open Source at Google with Will Norris https://changelog.com/podcast/245

They also talked about the TODO Group at some length.

No-Javascript as protection

tao — Mon, 03 Apr 2017 15:49:13 +0000

Personally I use Firefox with the NoScript plugin. Seems to work well enough.

No-Javascript as protection

giraffedata — Sat, 01 Apr 2017 19:43:26 +0000

I have been stubbornly using Presto Opera (discontinued in 2013; no relation to the current web browser by that name) everywhere I can and its #1 advantage for me over the alternatives is two-keystroke enabling and disabling of Javascript. I run without Javascript normally and turn it on when I need it (which is fairly often).

But for me, keeping the page from moving is the secondary reason to disable Javascript. The main one is the speedup, sometimes a factor of 100 improvement in page rendering time.

No-Javascript as protection

pr1268 — Fri, 31 Mar 2017 12:06:05 +0000

Firefox removed the JavaScript check box from the user interface. Sure, it's still there in about:config, but then again that's not the most user-friendly way of giving users the option. (For the record: I agree with OldTomas regarding restoring the check box.)

I tried disabling JavaScript in Chrome—now https://opensource.google.com gives me a nearly totally white screen. What a UI disaster!

No-Javascript as protection

zenaan — Fri, 31 Mar 2017 07:48:06 +0000

> And hello, Firefox: once you restore the "disable Javascript" checkbox I'll consider you my ally again!

When was the last time Firefox had that?

Been using NoScript for a decade or more now...

Also, under about:config there seems to be a javascript.enabled option - I don't recall ever using that though..

Documentation, google-specificity, and the TODO group

kpfleming — Thu, 30 Mar 2017 15:29:15 +0000

I've not yet seen anything published by the TODO Group, even though I've been closely watching to see if it might be worth joining. I've been told by members that my recent presentations touched on topics of significant discussion in the group, but that's all I've been able to learn so far.

No-Javascript as protection

oldtomas — Thu, 30 Mar 2017 07:51:33 +0000

Judging by all the other comments, it seems that my very strict "no Javascript" policy is protecting me quite well from some nonsense out there. I just see a nondescript twirling something -- somewhat soothing, but also somewhat boring :)

So thanks for warning me: one less thing I need to see.

(No: I don't want to generalize. If you enjoy it, go for it, by all means!).

And hello, Firefox: once you restore the "disable Javascript" checkbox I'll consider you my ally again!

Google's new open-source site

Eliot — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 21:03:17 +0000

You can get a longer list faster by changing the 'page' parameter in the uri

E.g. This shows all the python projects at once.

https://opensource.google.com/projects/search?q=%20&l...

Documentation, google-specificity, and the TODO group

louie — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 20:47:12 +0000

The documentation is pretty good, and some of it is painstakingly thorough. But it is also very Google-specific.

Google acknowledges this, and points at the TODO Group as a vendor-neutral alternative. But as far as I can tell the TODO Group doesn't actually publish any documentation. Am I missing something, or is there something forthcoming, or...? Any LWN readers have an idea on that?

Google's new open-source site

jreiser — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 12:10:42 +0000

Even the Google search "<project-name> site:opensource.google.com" often yields no results.

Google's new open-source site

jrigg — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 09:31:11 +0000

Unusable UI. I suppose that's an achievement of sorts.

Google's new open-source site

eru — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 06:32:33 +0000

Obviously that is how the site developers understood "gamification": make the UI work like a video game...

Google's new open-source site

oever — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 22:46:40 +0000

Even that requires javascript to show anything and what it shows with javascript enabled is indeed very space inefficient and annoyingly animated.

Hope this is not the direction the google search page is going.

Google's new open-source site

Cyberax — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 22:36:03 +0000

This UI! My eyes, ze goggles do nothing.

Google's new open-source site

2bluesc — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 21:50:24 +0000

There is a list view https://opensource.google.com/projects/list/featured for discovery

Google's new open-source site

nix — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 20:36:13 +0000

The only UI I've found for browsing projects on the site, <https://opensource.google.com/projects/explore/featured>, is unbelievably awful. Rather than just giving us a list of project names we might recognize and go 'ooh' at, we have icons of various sizes, none of which have textual descriptions or any obvious way to distinguish them from each other, which are *moving*. Nobody with the least impairment in anything is going to have any hope of using this. Even my mild coordination deficit is enough to render the interface unusable -- and even if it was usable, it would still be useless because you're faced with a mass of tiny icons with no way to tell which is which other than to click on each and every one of them.

What maniac thought this was a good way to present anything?

(There is at least a search interface, but that requires you to already know what you're looking for.)

... Ah. I see that there is an icon of a grid which *obviously* means "show me this in textual form" (though even that shows you about ten projects per screen in a horrendously space-inefficient fashion, and only shows you a few unless you constantly bang 'show more', because obviously web browsers have page size limits the same as an A4 sheet of paper). I didn't notice it at first because it is unselected by default, and is very dark grey on black unless selected, which unless you have good vision means it is invisible.

Why didn't they have someone over the age of thirty review this horrible UI? "You must have perfect vision or perfect coordination to use this site, or we don't care about you."