UI Part 1

Unless you live under a rock, you might have noticed that the website got a new interface.  Of course, this has been met with the usual complaints… It looks horrible.  Why change something which works perfectly?  There are missing features.  How is this an improvement?

So let’s look at a few reasons why it is necessary to update the website.

[1] Spaghetti code: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_code

Production code which has been used for quite a long time typically has had many revisions, edits and features added.  Over time, this makes the original code difficult to understand and navigate, and more time consuming to make certain the changes have not introduced new bugs.  So it becomes necessary to do a total re-write of the code just to scrub, clean, and optimize the code.

[2] New technologies aka future proofing:

While  mobile surfing was technically possible a few years ago, not many people did it.  Today, not only is it possible, it is actively encouraged.  Some providers actually encourage their users to stream movies and watch live sports on their mobile devices.  With the advent of HTML 5 and other under-the-hood technologies, it is possible to do things that were not conceived just a few short years ago.

[3] MTGO 4:

Let’s face it, MTGO going to version 4 is going to require total re-write of the code.  Since Library is going to get a re-write, why not do the same thing concerning the website?

So instead of looking at this as a negative, look at the positive.  Yes, there are some problems which will be ironed out.  Just look at this as growing pains.  We’ll be getting the same features, and a few new features with this, so just be patient.  I’ll go over those next time.