You know after I posted that semi-rant on Google Reader, it occurred to me that I was maybe being a bit too hard on it. I mean, obviously, there's evidence of hard work put into this thing. And although I haven't bothered to view source yet, I imagine there's some cool AJAX-style magic going on under there. And, for some (most?) users, this way of viewing feeds is nice and pleasant to use.
\nBut, man... all that hard work, and I just can't shake my impression of how slow this thing is. And I don't mean how slow it is to load from the server, but the whole UI experience once it's loaded: That is, how slow all the scrolling and the clicking and the navigating is. Wasn't this AJAX thing supposed to be all about quick, slick, and snappy web apps?
\nI guess I feel a bit let down—with all the time it took Google to make a move in the feed aggregator space, and with those PhD's they have laying around, I expected they'd finally have something revolutionary. Not this, not a cute toy I could've cobbled together myself in short order with Flash or AJAX. (But I haven't, because it'd be useless to me.)
\nFor example, take the Google Maps API. I just happened to be working with it for a project this week, and I have to say that that's some nice stuff there. That's a platform that feels like some magic. I don't think I could've built that from scratch, though it sure is fun building things atop it.
\n\n", "body": "You know after I posted that [semi-rant on Google Reader][gr], it occurred to me that I was maybe being a bit too hard on it. I mean, obviously, there's evidence of hard work put into this thing. And although I haven't bothered to view source yet, I imagine there's some cool AJAX-style magic going on under there. And, for some (most?) users, this way of viewing feeds is nice and pleasant to use.\r\n\r\nBut, man... all that hard work, and I just can't shake my impression of how *slow* this thing is. And I don't mean how slow it is to load from the server, but the whole UI experience once it's loaded: That is, how slow all the scrolling and the clicking and the navigating is. Wasn't this AJAX thing supposed to be all about quick, slick, and snappy web apps?\r\n\r\nI guess I feel a bit let down—with all the time it took Google to make a move in the feed aggregator space, and with those PhD's they have laying around, I expected they'd finally have something revolutionary. Not this, not a cute toy *I* could've cobbled together *myself* in short order with Flash or AJAX. (But I haven't, because it'd be useless to me.)\r\n\r\nFor example, take the [Google Maps API][gma]. I just happened to be working with it for a project this week, and I have to say that that's some nice stuff there. That's a platform that feels like some magic. I don't think I could've built *that* from scratch, though it sure is fun building things atop it.\r\n\r\n[gr]: http://decafbad.com/blog/2005/10/07/google-reader-big-blue-chunky-water-wings\r\n[gma]: http://www.google.com/apis/maps/\r\n\r\n\r\n", "parentPath": "./content/posts/archives/2005", "path": "2005/10/07/too-hard-on-google-reader", "needsBuild": true, "prevPostPath": "2005/10/07/google-reader-big-blue-chunky-water-wings", "prevPostTitle": "Google Reader: Big, blue, chunky water-wings", "nextPostPath": "2005/10/08/dom-scripting-sounds-like-a-fine-book", "nextPostTitle": "DOM Scripting sounds like a fine book" }