Which sometimes is not bad at all. Ever tried to ctrl-click an interface element (a navigation button, a menu) because you want to open its view in a new window?
A lot of (admittedly badly coded) "modern" web apps ignore basic web idioms (like hyperlinks) and assume as unique single user workflow the one its designer tought the app (and the only one he tested).
A nice example of this: with the new Reddit interface, only visible comments are rendered, so you can't use your browser search functionality to search all comments on the page, just the ones currently in the viewport.
Amen to this. The new Reddit interface is a step backwards in functionality due to this sorta stuff and effectively breaks user experience.
Just to give an idea how bad it is: loading the front page cold of new reddit = 9685KB. Loading the front page on the old reddit (also cold) = 737KB. The compute profile is literally half for old.reddit.com (new peak 16%, old peak 7.5% - both metrics core-distributed over an 8c system; 1s sample rate).
I LOVE all of this talk that front-end devs like to have on optimization/state stability. Talk to an browser automation expert, esp. one that does it at scale. Almost 100% of the time older/simpler front-end tooling/development is faster and less error prone. Older also takes a FRACTION of the compute/memory/proxy resources. It's been this way for years!!!
ducks for the inevitable storm of HN hate for having a strong opinion
A lot of (admittedly badly coded) "modern" web apps ignore basic web idioms (like hyperlinks) and assume as unique single user workflow the one its designer tought the app (and the only one he tested).