Lazy Load VS infinite scrolling

Question

I thought Lazy Loading and infinite scrolling are same things, But today I heard that these are two different things. Is that true?

Coitus

lazy load is a solution helping implement what the users perceives as infinite scrolling (which is a feature). – Bignonia

Answer 1

Lazy loading refers to deferring the loading of any kind of content until it becomes necessary. For example, on a lengthy page, images that are not currently visible do not need to be loaded. They are fetched from the server only when the user scrolls the page over or near them.

Infinite scrolling refers to the loading of new content when the end of the page is reached, creating the effect of an infinitely long page (mostly to avoid tedious paging).

So yes, they are different but related.

Statehood

So main different is that in Lazy loading, Page contents get initialized for later But in infinite scrolling not? Please bring me another example for lazy loading. thanks. – Coitus

Infinite scroll is a very specific kind of lazy loading. Lazy loading can mean other things too. That's the difference. – Statehood

To reiterate the point in a slightly different way: lazy loading refers to the deferring of any kind of content until it's needed. Let's say you have 1,000 records that are displayed in a table, but only the first 100 are gotten from the server and shown initially - this is because a user wouldn't be able to see all 1,000 records at the same time anyway, so the next 100 records aren't needed until the user scrolls down near the end of the table, at which point the next 100 records are lazy loaded. – Splenic

Answer 2

Infinite Scrolling is one of the methodology by which we can achieve Lazy Loading.

Lazy loading means the request for the resource or records will be made only when they are demanded.

In case of Infnite Scrolling ,the request for the next set of records will be made only when scroll bar reaches bottom of th grid and fires request to load the next set of records.

So,well you can consider Infinite Scrolling is the technique by which Lazy loading is achieved.

Note: Infinite scrolling is not only the way to achieve Lazy Loading. there are many other ways of achieveing it. For ex: Demand Paging

Hope this helps..Thanks

Enscroll