4 ms·

>unless you think that large website payloads exist because developers are literally too lazy or don't know how asset optimization works. For what it's worth,

>unless you think that large website payloads exist because developers are literally too lazy or don't know how asset optimization works. For what it's worth, I do think this. It's easy to just drag another JS library into your code without thinking of how long it's going to take to load.

chickenfries 9y ago
I don't know what to tell you if you're convinced that's the problem. I know and work with many web developers who do care about performance. I follow the blogs of many web developers who write about performance. I don't doubt that there are junior web developers who don't know much better. But I don't really meet anyone who says that they just don't care about performance.
- debaserab2 9y ago
  Caring about performance means weighing the decision carefully when choosing vendor libraries that fill up your payload. You can consciously care about performance but still be negligent to the things that affect it. I see competent devs reach for libraries all the time when a simple solution already exists within the language. It's easy to feel like you're doing the right thing by not reinventing the wheel. Areas I see this happening a lot in are anything dealing with file systems, HTTP request/responses, database connections, DOM/string manipulation/parsing/validation. The common theme among all these things is usually a lack of understanding of what the library/package does well enough to implement the specific use case needed.
- BurningFrog 9y ago
  Let me just point out that you can care deeply about performance and still lack the skills to achieve it.
  - chickenfries 9y ago
    Yes, I agreed with you in my post. > I don't doubt that there are junior web developers who don't know much better. I just think it's very... puritanical the way that people bemoan the state of websites as a personal failing of web developers as a profession rather than the a result of what kind of deliverables their employers care about and are willing to pay for.
    - CaptSpify 9y ago
      Whenever I see the term "web developers" in this context, I'm assuming it means all of the decisions they make given the requirements and inputs from others in the business. I think the web is currently terrible and I think modern web-development is to blame, but that includes the people behind the web-devs making the decisions that are being pushed onto the web-devs. There are a lot of things to blame for the current state of the web, but ultimately the current practice of web-development (and whatever behind-the-scenes processes that involves) is clearly the biggest reason why.
      - chickenfries 9y ago
        See in my mind that’s like blaming construction workers for condos built quickly with shoddy materials. I don’t choose the materials I work with most of the time. I have worked on maybe one greenfield application in my entire life. It was really small and performed well. Everything else has been making the best out of bad decisions made by other people.
        CaptSpify 9y ago
        I agree that it isn't fair, but that's also just how it goes. I get blamed all the time for poor decisions made by my group, even if I agree that they are poor decisions.
sebringj 9y ago
If you balance pay vs. skill and the rarity of such an incredible web game...things are quite the way they should be. Reality. No one is going to pay an average web developer to care that much because they themselves do not care enough to invest in the talent or the time involved.
- chickenfries 9y ago
  Even if you're a great developer, you might not be getting paid to care about performance. If "loads fast" is not a deliverable your employer cares about, they are not going to give you the time or budget to care about performance. Think of how many websites, especially for marketing purposes, are built by contractors who are getting tasked with making shiny, asset heavy websites that look good on the nice macbooks of businesses paying them. I've never seen a heard a client say "oh and make sure the page loads in under 2s" to be honest.
  - flamedoge 9y ago
    facebook takes 25s to fully load
    - chickenfries 9y ago
      Not on any of my devices. And time until “fully loaded” is just one piece of the performance pie.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    When you're talking about code written for hire, you have to separate the developer's priorities/cares from the company's. There are many, MANY companies that do not care about performance or quality, where good enough means "At least won't actively enrage customers." These companies sometimes hire individual developers who do care about performance and quality. But if you're Third Developer From The Left on Project 123, what you personally care about is irrelevant. This is one of the reasons I got out of actually writing software as a profession. My interests as a developer rarely aligned with my employers' business goals. I got tired of the whole "Cram features as fast as you can, quality be damned" mode of development and bailed.
kbutler 9y ago
Website payload is easily measurable (it is probably the most easily measurable factor), and optimizing it is attractive to developers. That doesn't mean it is the most important factor, much less the only important aspect of development. Rather than "lazy" or "don't know", how about: - it's fast enough - have other priorities (security, stability, usability, functionality) - optimize developer time ...
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > it's fast enough It's fast enough for people with as good computers and Internet connections as me, who are also employed at the same company as I am, and so do not use anything but the product on their computer at the same time. > optimize developer time Saving 1h for a developer for each 30min wasted over the lifetime of the application * number of users. Yeah, that scales right. Electricity is free too.
  - chickenfries 9y ago
    So is there any situation where you would say that the gains from performance optimization are marginal? Also, you fail to consider the opportunity cost of developer time. It's not free. Your business needs you to do other things. Also, like GP said, there are factors to performance beyond payload size. Do you actually develop web applications for a job where someone else decides the priorities?
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      > So is there any situation where you would say that the gains from performance optimization are marginal? Yes! But the current trends around software - and in particular web stuff, both in-browser and in-browser-but-pretending-to-be-native - very, very far from that point. Look, I know that business has its priorities. But I have a right to dislike a business based on its priorities, and I believe chasing ultra-short-term gains by resorting to shitty engineering is a bad thing, and I do avoid using products of such companies, and I do call it out when I see it. Ultimately, business priorities are determined by the market, and I'm doing what little I can to create market pressures towards user-respecting solutions. And yes, I've been doing webdev as a regular employee, and I always pushed against both needless inefficiency and user-hostile "features", with quite a good success.

chickenfries 9y ago

I don't know what to tell you if you're convinced that's the problem. I know and work with many web developers who do care about performance. I follow the blogs of many web developers who write about performance. I don't doubt that there are junior web developers who don't know much better. But I don't really meet anyone who says that they just don't care about performance.

debaserab2 9y ago
Caring about performance means weighing the decision carefully when choosing vendor libraries that fill up your payload. You can consciously care about performance but still be negligent to the things that affect it. I see competent devs reach for libraries all the time when a simple solution already exists within the language. It's easy to feel like you're doing the right thing by not reinventing the wheel. Areas I see this happening a lot in are anything dealing with file systems, HTTP request/responses, database connections, DOM/string manipulation/parsing/validation. The common theme among all these things is usually a lack of understanding of what the library/package does well enough to implement the specific use case needed.
BurningFrog 9y ago
Let me just point out that you can care deeply about performance and still lack the skills to achieve it.
- chickenfries 9y ago
  Yes, I agreed with you in my post. > I don't doubt that there are junior web developers who don't know much better. I just think it's very... puritanical the way that people bemoan the state of websites as a personal failing of web developers as a profession rather than the a result of what kind of deliverables their employers care about and are willing to pay for.
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    Whenever I see the term "web developers" in this context, I'm assuming it means all of the decisions they make given the requirements and inputs from others in the business. I think the web is currently terrible and I think modern web-development is to blame, but that includes the people behind the web-devs making the decisions that are being pushed onto the web-devs. There are a lot of things to blame for the current state of the web, but ultimately the current practice of web-development (and whatever behind-the-scenes processes that involves) is clearly the biggest reason why.
    - chickenfries 9y ago
      See in my mind that’s like blaming construction workers for condos built quickly with shoddy materials. I don’t choose the materials I work with most of the time. I have worked on maybe one greenfield application in my entire life. It was really small and performed well. Everything else has been making the best out of bad decisions made by other people.
      - CaptSpify 9y ago
        I agree that it isn't fair, but that's also just how it goes. I get blamed all the time for poor decisions made by my group, even if I agree that they are poor decisions.

sebringj 9y ago

If you balance pay vs. skill and the rarity of such an incredible web game...things are quite the way they should be. Reality. No one is going to pay an average web developer to care that much because they themselves do not care enough to invest in the talent or the time involved.

chickenfries 9y ago
Even if you're a great developer, you might not be getting paid to care about performance. If "loads fast" is not a deliverable your employer cares about, they are not going to give you the time or budget to care about performance. Think of how many websites, especially for marketing purposes, are built by contractors who are getting tasked with making shiny, asset heavy websites that look good on the nice macbooks of businesses paying them. I've never seen a heard a client say "oh and make sure the page loads in under 2s" to be honest.
- flamedoge 9y ago
  facebook takes 25s to fully load
  - chickenfries 9y ago
    Not on any of my devices. And time until “fully loaded” is just one piece of the performance pie.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  When you're talking about code written for hire, you have to separate the developer's priorities/cares from the company's. There are many, MANY companies that do not care about performance or quality, where good enough means "At least won't actively enrage customers." These companies sometimes hire individual developers who do care about performance and quality. But if you're Third Developer From The Left on Project 123, what you personally care about is irrelevant. This is one of the reasons I got out of actually writing software as a profession. My interests as a developer rarely aligned with my employers' business goals. I got tired of the whole "Cram features as fast as you can, quality be damned" mode of development and bailed.

kbutler 9y ago

Website payload is easily measurable (it is probably the most easily measurable factor), and optimizing it is attractive to developers. That doesn't mean it is the most important factor, much less the only important aspect of development. Rather than "lazy" or "don't know", how about: - it's fast enough - have other priorities (security, stability, usability, functionality) - optimize developer time ...

TeMPOraL 9y ago
> it's fast enough It's fast enough for people with as good computers and Internet connections as me, who are also employed at the same company as I am, and so do not use anything but the product on their computer at the same time. > optimize developer time Saving 1h for a developer for each 30min wasted over the lifetime of the application * number of users. Yeah, that scales right. Electricity is free too.
- chickenfries 9y ago
  So is there any situation where you would say that the gains from performance optimization are marginal? Also, you fail to consider the opportunity cost of developer time. It's not free. Your business needs you to do other things. Also, like GP said, there are factors to performance beyond payload size. Do you actually develop web applications for a job where someone else decides the priorities?
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > So is there any situation where you would say that the gains from performance optimization are marginal? Yes! But the current trends around software - and in particular web stuff, both in-browser and in-browser-but-pretending-to-be-native - very, very far from that point. Look, I know that business has its priorities. But I have a right to dislike a business based on its priorities, and I believe chasing ultra-short-term gains by resorting to shitty engineering is a bad thing, and I do avoid using products of such companies, and I do call it out when I see it. Ultimately, business priorities are determined by the market, and I'm doing what little I can to create market pressures towards user-respecting solutions. And yes, I've been doing webdev as a regular employee, and I always pushed against both needless inefficiency and user-hostile "features", with quite a good success.