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by ksec·24d ago·view on hn ↗
Also want to add, the new design is now after at least 5 - 6 years of iterations on React, is finally useable and better.

Much like all decent JS front end / React based Web site, it takes years to polish to make it work to certain standards. I am not entirely sure why we have to do that and what benefits does it actually brings?

2 comments
Just to clarify: I think an older version may have used React, but I just double-checked and current Reddit is definitely a Lit app built with web components. You can tell based on the comment placeholders used by the rendering engine as anchor nodes and by the prevalence of dashed-elements in the markup. Here's an example:

  <rpl-tooltip placement="top" appearance="neutral">
          <!--?lit$003985561$-->
          <span slot="content"><!--?lit$003985561$-->Send a GIF</span>
  </rpl-tooltip>
They seem to call the current architecture "shreddit" internally for some reason.
Probably "shhh" don't tell anyone how bad this version this is
they put a bunch of their stuff in shadow dom. A lot of the decisions of course are not based on usability but monetization incentives. If the current decision makers could, they would have made reddit a walled garden like facebook but the transition is a little awkward seeing as it used to be a free and open site. looks like they are close to cutting the cord on that openness.