5 ms·

Web Pages themselves are far heavier and more complex than they were in the 90's

by bwat48 11y ago

cm3 11y ago
Isn't it a failure of HTML+CSS+WebFoo when the supporting assets are 10 or 20 times larger than the content to be consumed? Pages loading megabytes of JavaScript, fonts, and large images and videos just on the landing page. I think we lost it completely when we started to fetch JSON and render it locally via JavaScript. The whole concept of HTTP GET was nullified that way.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  CSS basically turned the whole thing into a crappy apps UI, though the appification of the web honestly started back when Microsoft and Netscape was battling for control over the intranet (and likely why anything and everything is layered on top of TCP/IP these days, for better or worse). In a way we have come full circle. The personal computer came to be because accountants was fed up begging sysadmins for time on the mainframes. And with CSS and JS "powered" web sites we have returned to the era of the graphical terminal.
  - cm3 11y ago
    It's even worse than TCP/IP only, it's mostly HTTP only these days. Things like SCTP got pushed into niche use and we're reinventing SCTP on top of HTPP(2) on top of TCP on top of IP. I'm hopeful to see the trend go back though, if it's really a circle :).
    - digi_owl 11y ago
      Yeah i know. We seem to have turned HTTP into TCP, and use it to carry various ad-hoc "protocols" encoded in JSON. Part of that i think we can blame firewalls, as most often they block everything but HTTP(S) by default.
ketralnis 11y ago
Nobody is arguing that, but should e.g. a landing page for a startup that just collects an email address really be heavier weight than a whole browser was a few years ago?
- cm3 11y ago
  Exactly. Also can anybody explain why websites make it hard and harder to find an about or contact page which actually has a postal address. You don't have to implement it like the German law insists but what used to be common practice now seems to be hidden. Another bug of modern web pages is that they're designed like tv ads and it's impossible to find out what a company is actually doing. Go to 10 random startup pages and see how many actually explain what it is they're producing/providing. It makes me feel like I'm listening to someone who's talking much without discernible content.

Web Pages themselves are far heavier and more complex than they were in the 90's

by bwat48 11y ago

Web Pages themselves are far heavier and more complex than they were in the 90's

cm3 11y ago

Isn't it a failure of HTML+CSS+WebFoo when the supporting assets are 10 or 20 times larger than the content to be consumed? Pages loading megabytes of JavaScript, fonts, and large images and videos just on the landing page. I think we lost it completely when we started to fetch JSON and render it locally via JavaScript. The whole concept of HTTP GET was nullified that way.

digi_owl 11y ago
CSS basically turned the whole thing into a crappy apps UI, though the appification of the web honestly started back when Microsoft and Netscape was battling for control over the intranet (and likely why anything and everything is layered on top of TCP/IP these days, for better or worse). In a way we have come full circle. The personal computer came to be because accountants was fed up begging sysadmins for time on the mainframes. And with CSS and JS "powered" web sites we have returned to the era of the graphical terminal.
- cm3 11y ago
  It's even worse than TCP/IP only, it's mostly HTTP only these days. Things like SCTP got pushed into niche use and we're reinventing SCTP on top of HTPP(2) on top of TCP on top of IP. I'm hopeful to see the trend go back though, if it's really a circle :).
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    Yeah i know. We seem to have turned HTTP into TCP, and use it to carry various ad-hoc "protocols" encoded in JSON. Part of that i think we can blame firewalls, as most often they block everything but HTTP(S) by default.

ketralnis 11y ago

Nobody is arguing that, but should e.g. a landing page for a startup that just collects an email address really be heavier weight than a whole browser was a few years ago?

cm3 11y ago
Exactly. Also can anybody explain why websites make it hard and harder to find an about or contact page which actually has a postal address. You don't have to implement it like the German law insists but what used to be common practice now seems to be hidden. Another bug of modern web pages is that they're designed like tv ads and it's impossible to find out what a company is actually doing. Go to 10 random startup pages and see how many actually explain what it is they're producing/providing. It makes me feel like I'm listening to someone who's talking much without discernible content.