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Wonderful! I am so irritated with JavaScript bloat... completely unnecessary cruft 99% of the time. I built my blog with the goal to have zero js but I had to

Wonderful! I am so irritated with JavaScript bloat... completely unnecessary cruft 99% of the time. I built my blog with the goal to have zero js but I had to capitulate for google analytics. The blog is a static website deployed on a CDN and I have no access to access.log - I honestly couldn’t find any analytics solution that won’t require js.

chrismorgan 6y ago
> I had to capitulate for google analytics. Ask yourself how much you actually need analytics. I found I seldom looked at it. I myself replaced Google Analytics with self-hosted Matomo for a while, but then I just dropped it altogether because I simply don’t need it. Now I do have server logs that I can look at, and from time to time I do (and they reveal things like Atom feeds consume the substantial majority of the traffic and page loads, which client-side JS logging would never have revealed!), but it wouldn’t bother me to have no analytics at all.
- gbrindisi 6y ago
  I just want to know if what I write is being read and how is propagated/shared
  - zelphirkalt 6y ago
    If effort or time was not a limitation, you could opt for a tool that you can self host, instead of increasing Google's data.
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    access.log
- asaaki 6y ago
  I decided to have no (client side) tracking at all, for both usually it requires JS and cookies. And honestly I don't like to have both on my site if not strictly necessary (as a European citizen I'm also quite aware of all the shenanigans one has to do wrt privacy and consent).
tweetle_beetle 6y ago
Out of curiosity, what decision do you anticipate taking for your personal site that would be informed by data from Google Analytics? In a commercial setting, it would be for things like adjusting marketing budgets (presumably not applicable), reviewing hosting infrastructure (you seem to have that taken care of), adjusting content strategy (not an issue if you're publishing on your own terms?) etc.
- gbrindisi 6y ago
  Simply put: I want to know if what I am writing is being read and how is propagated.
  - chrismorgan 6y ago
    Yeah, but what will you change based on what you discover? That’s the essence of what tweetle_beetle is asking and why many end up deciding that they don’t actually need analytics—because they’re not going to change anything based on what they observe.
    - gbrindisi 6y ago
      like it or not, analytics can give you actionable information to drive some seo improvements in how your content is displayed and consumed
      - chrismorgan 6y ago
        Can, sure, at least once you have enough volume of content; but will you use it? Almost no one actually does for personal blogs and the likes.
- ssss11 6y ago
  Perhaps its a professional blog and they’d like to know about their audience.
tiborsaas 6y ago
That's great, but try to work with 25-50 other frontend developers on the same product. You will soon run into challenges which you can only solve by adding more and more layers abstractions. It's not a defense of bloat, but just an explanation that why some products look incredibly complex on the frontend stack.
strzibny 6y ago
Netlify offers this.

chrismorgan 6y ago

> I had to capitulate for google analytics. Ask yourself how much you actually need analytics. I found I seldom looked at it. I myself replaced Google Analytics with self-hosted Matomo for a while, but then I just dropped it altogether because I simply don’t need it. Now I do have server logs that I can look at, and from time to time I do (and they reveal things like Atom feeds consume the substantial majority of the traffic and page loads, which client-side JS logging would never have revealed!), but it wouldn’t bother me to have no analytics at all.

gbrindisi 6y ago
I just want to know if what I write is being read and how is propagated/shared
- zelphirkalt 6y ago
  If effort or time was not a limitation, you could opt for a tool that you can self host, instead of increasing Google's data.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  access.log
asaaki 6y ago
I decided to have no (client side) tracking at all, for both usually it requires JS and cookies. And honestly I don't like to have both on my site if not strictly necessary (as a European citizen I'm also quite aware of all the shenanigans one has to do wrt privacy and consent).

tweetle_beetle 6y ago

Out of curiosity, what decision do you anticipate taking for your personal site that would be informed by data from Google Analytics? In a commercial setting, it would be for things like adjusting marketing budgets (presumably not applicable), reviewing hosting infrastructure (you seem to have that taken care of), adjusting content strategy (not an issue if you're publishing on your own terms?) etc.

gbrindisi 6y ago
Simply put: I want to know if what I am writing is being read and how is propagated.
- chrismorgan 6y ago
  Yeah, but what will you change based on what you discover? That’s the essence of what tweetle_beetle is asking and why many end up deciding that they don’t actually need analytics—because they’re not going to change anything based on what they observe.
  - gbrindisi 6y ago
    like it or not, analytics can give you actionable information to drive some seo improvements in how your content is displayed and consumed
    - chrismorgan 6y ago
      Can, sure, at least once you have enough volume of content; but will you use it? Almost no one actually does for personal blogs and the likes.
ssss11 6y ago
Perhaps its a professional blog and they’d like to know about their audience.

tiborsaas 6y ago

That's great, but try to work with 25-50 other frontend developers on the same product. You will soon run into challenges which you can only solve by adding more and more layers abstractions. It's not a defense of bloat, but just an explanation that why some products look incredibly complex on the frontend stack.

strzibny 6y ago

Netlify offers this.