3 ms·

Browser engines need a lot of computing to know what color each pixel of a page needs to be, for each pixel: the typeface affects it, the background image of al

Browser engines need a lot of computing to know what color each pixel of a page needs to be, for each pixel: the typeface affects it, the background image of all the parent elements (in case of transparency) affects it, the CSS positioning of the elements affects it (there could be a white title text, but an annoying cookie popup with a semi-dark background means it needs to be displayed as a greyed out text).

colechristensen 5y ago
They really don't though, they could do it just fine in 1995. Browsers have bloated into crazy complex machines though that do way more than rendering some text and graphics. The simple rendering is not why browsers are slow on RPis.
- leros 5y ago
  HTML is simple. Add CSS and dynamic DOM manipulation and it's whole different situation.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    The javascript stuff that transformed hypertext documents into fully fledged applications is complicated. HTML and CSS really isn't. It's hard to have an unbiased opinion about what is easy and what is hard for a computer to do. Much of what is done on the web could be 90% as good with 10% of the complexity, but we're buried under too many layers of abstraction, bloat, and "improvement".
- rwalle 5y ago
  Enough of such comments. Obviously you have never worked much in the front end or the web user experience, and don't understand the complexity or the difficulty of such technologies. Anyone saying "things were fine in 1995" is ignoring how non-interactive, non-intuitive how web pages were, and how much more pleasant it is to look at a web page and get the information today. It is true that some web pages are using unnecessary (or even too much) animations and such and may have a negative effect on user experience or accessibility, but there is no doubt that the web is a better place than it was in 1995. And I'm sorry to say that your personal opinion does not matter, and the web is never going back to 1995.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    You say, commenting on a website explicitly designed to be minimalist which would be perfectly comfortable running on a 1995 level hardware. Most of the web I visit doesn’t need to be interactive all that much and the interactivity that is added gets in the way more than it helps anything. We’re just exchanging pictures and text here. The bits where people are writing applications on the web really get in the way of experiences where people are just exchanging content.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

colechristensen 5y ago

They really don't though, they could do it just fine in 1995. Browsers have bloated into crazy complex machines though that do way more than rendering some text and graphics. The simple rendering is not why browsers are slow on RPis.

leros 5y ago
HTML is simple. Add CSS and dynamic DOM manipulation and it's whole different situation.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  The javascript stuff that transformed hypertext documents into fully fledged applications is complicated. HTML and CSS really isn't. It's hard to have an unbiased opinion about what is easy and what is hard for a computer to do. Much of what is done on the web could be 90% as good with 10% of the complexity, but we're buried under too many layers of abstraction, bloat, and "improvement".
rwalle 5y ago
Enough of such comments. Obviously you have never worked much in the front end or the web user experience, and don't understand the complexity or the difficulty of such technologies. Anyone saying "things were fine in 1995" is ignoring how non-interactive, non-intuitive how web pages were, and how much more pleasant it is to look at a web page and get the information today. It is true that some web pages are using unnecessary (or even too much) animations and such and may have a negative effect on user experience or accessibility, but there is no doubt that the web is a better place than it was in 1995. And I'm sorry to say that your personal opinion does not matter, and the web is never going back to 1995.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  You say, commenting on a website explicitly designed to be minimalist which would be perfectly comfortable running on a 1995 level hardware. Most of the web I visit doesn’t need to be interactive all that much and the interactivity that is added gets in the way more than it helps anything. We’re just exchanging pictures and text here. The bits where people are writing applications on the web really get in the way of experiences where people are just exchanging content.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]