24 ms·

"I disabled one of the core technologies of the modern web and it breaks things."

by rtkwe 7y ago

Avery3R 7y ago
"Just download 8 megabytes of javascript and wait 10 seconds for a page that's mainly made up of static content and should be under ~1mb and load instantly"
- andai 7y ago
  It's mostly text, isn't it? So more like 10kb.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - pjc50 7y ago
    The page load took a second, on a desktop tethered to 4G. Chrome says "1.6MB transferred, 6.7MB resources" presumably because Google Analytics was a cache hit. Much of that is obfuscated-looking Ember containing some SVG and JSON inlined. A ctrl-R only loads about 20kb but still takes about half a second to render.
- dymk 7y ago
  The page loaded in about a second for me
  - komali2 7y ago
    20.4 seconds for me, before I could see text at all. If the SEO people are to believed, a vast majority of people would click away, what, 5 seconds into that?
    - owlninja 7y ago
      Just curious, what is your connection?
      - komali2 7y ago
        3g
    - thrwaway3832 7y ago
      How long do you think is reasonable to give gmail to load and display my interactive mailbox, on old hardware? It really annoys me.
grey-area 7y ago
This statement is only true for certain values of modern web.
komali2 7y ago
I get your point in general regarding the internet, but I'm not clear at all on how Javascript would be required for any of the tasks in this website. 1. Show text content 2. Make the text content look good 3. Allow submission to a comment section All of those things can be accomplished with some or none javascript. Why make the job harder than necessary? Why screw over screenreaders? Oh, I see there's a graph there, that probably would use some JS. But why not just hide the graph for noscript users?
- inetknght 7y ago
  Why not pre-render the graph and serve the pre-rendered image?
  - komali2 7y ago
    That'd be even better! I'm not sure how I'd do that off the top of my head, or if I'd bother for a blog post, but it's definitely a good idea. I think the mouseover behavior on the graph is cool though so having both (one for javascript people, one for non-JS people) is smart. It's completely inaccessible to screenreaders, though. I just get "Average Monthly Revenue 2012- 2018 canvas element."
- tracker1 7y ago
  I'd definitely make the main blog content display without JS... I don't think I'd do that for comments, in fact, been thinking of making something that only supports browsers with web crypto to do a pbkdf2 challenge in order to submit a comment. From there, would add a few more other pieces to sign said submission including the challenge. Although it would eliminate old browsers (and non-chrome edge), it would probably still be better than most captcha solutions.
- theseadroid 7y ago
  Javascript might not add much value to the reader/end user, but it can/might have made building the above 3 functionalities much faster and easier for the developer. Without Javascript we simply might not have all those great content to begin with. So if it makes the content creators' lives a bit easier, the cost of making the job harder for a small group of end users might be worthwhile.
urda 7y ago
"I need 8 megs of Javascript and a loading splash screen to display my own blog article in the 'modern web'". No you don't.
dang 7y ago
Please don't be snarky. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"I disabled one of the core technologies of the modern web and it breaks things."

by rtkwe 7y ago

"I disabled one of the core technologies of the modern web and it breaks things."

"Just download 8 megabytes of javascript and wait 10 seconds for a page that's mainly made up of static content and should be under ~1mb and load instantly"

andai 7y ago
It's mostly text, isn't it? So more like 10kb.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pjc50 7y ago
  The page load took a second, on a desktop tethered to 4G. Chrome says "1.6MB transferred, 6.7MB resources" presumably because Google Analytics was a cache hit. Much of that is obfuscated-looking Ember containing some SVG and JSON inlined. A ctrl-R only loads about 20kb but still takes about half a second to render.
dymk 7y ago
The page loaded in about a second for me
- komali2 7y ago
  20.4 seconds for me, before I could see text at all. If the SEO people are to believed, a vast majority of people would click away, what, 5 seconds into that?
  - owlninja 7y ago
    Just curious, what is your connection?
    - komali2 7y ago
      3g
  - thrwaway3832 7y ago
    How long do you think is reasonable to give gmail to load and display my interactive mailbox, on old hardware? It really annoys me.

grey-area 7y ago

This statement is only true for certain values of modern web.

komali2 7y ago

I get your point in general regarding the internet, but I'm not clear at all on how Javascript would be required for any of the tasks in this website. 1. Show text content 2. Make the text content look good 3. Allow submission to a comment section All of those things can be accomplished with some or none javascript. Why make the job harder than necessary? Why screw over screenreaders? Oh, I see there's a graph there, that probably would use some JS. But why not just hide the graph for noscript users?

inetknght 7y ago
Why not pre-render the graph and serve the pre-rendered image?
- komali2 7y ago
  That'd be even better! I'm not sure how I'd do that off the top of my head, or if I'd bother for a blog post, but it's definitely a good idea. I think the mouseover behavior on the graph is cool though so having both (one for javascript people, one for non-JS people) is smart. It's completely inaccessible to screenreaders, though. I just get "Average Monthly Revenue 2012- 2018 canvas element."
tracker1 7y ago
I'd definitely make the main blog content display without JS... I don't think I'd do that for comments, in fact, been thinking of making something that only supports browsers with web crypto to do a pbkdf2 challenge in order to submit a comment. From there, would add a few more other pieces to sign said submission including the challenge. Although it would eliminate old browsers (and non-chrome edge), it would probably still be better than most captcha solutions.
theseadroid 7y ago
Javascript might not add much value to the reader/end user, but it can/might have made building the above 3 functionalities much faster and easier for the developer. Without Javascript we simply might not have all those great content to begin with. So if it makes the content creators' lives a bit easier, the cost of making the job harder for a small group of end users might be worthwhile.

urda 7y ago

"I need 8 megs of Javascript and a loading splash screen to display my own blog article in the 'modern web'". No you don't.

dang 7y ago

Please don't be snarky. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html