It also makes it nearly impossible to slowly read one's own comment history, as the "next" pagination links are session data dependent and are garbage collected quite frequently.
This is, quite possibly, the worst webapp I use on a regular basis.
The first and foremost reason for me to consult HN is because it is fast. I am in China, and usualy send time on the web only on my phone, with 3g connection.
HN speed beats all other link agregators, blogs, news site, and even goolgle search, and -- most interesting: even fast Chinese sites.
I don't know why it is so fast (except when it is dead, obviously), maybe because of this flat-file architecture, which could just make sense. (Git is very fast too, right?)
And I think it is interesting that the "make it fast" is a leitmotiv that has been forgotten by so many people, Google firstly, but is still a reason for some (me, at least) to pick this site over that sire.
Thank you for explaining why the 'unknown link' happens at all. It's terrible - same with when you spend time thinking and formulating a response, only to see it disappear with the same error.
Yeah, modern browsers are great at not losing form data. When I hit this error I hit back, then reload, then resubmit with full confidence that my comment will be unharmed.
So HN doesn't bother me so much. It's the #$%# smartypants webapps that try to reinvent textareas in javascript that piss me off. I'm looking at you, Quora and new Gmail compose.
If the old ways work well enough, why bother to change?
I still call my Windows scripts .bat files (instead of .cmd, that's clearly for OS/2 programs).
It was only in the last three or four years that I stopped naming my files with all-uppercase names not longer than eight letters, with an extension not longer than three letters, to be sure they would be compatible with a FAT16 filesystem.
I'm rather distrustful of GUI's for doing things like moving or copying files.
I never drag-and-drop files into programs, partly because I seldom use GUI file managers, but mainly because most programs didn't support the metaphor when Windows 95 first came out, and I haven't bothered to check if things have gotten better yet.
Given these facts, you might find it surprising to learn that my age is less than 30.
Still and all, you can't help but notice how awesomely rock-solid browser textareas have gotten. I've actually had my laptop run out of charge and unceremoniously die on me in the midst of a humongous comment. Reboot, login, open browser, tabs all pop up -- and there's my comment. It's utterly amazing.
This is, quite possibly, the worst webapp I use on a regular basis.