6 ms·

The team at gov.uk is doing an excellent job regarding web performance, credit where credit is due. In many ways role model behavior. Still, the results are su

by fleddr 4y ago

The team at gov.uk is doing an excellent job regarding web performance, credit where credit is due. In many ways role model behavior. Still, the results are such a stretch as to not have that much meaning. They have to descent all the way to 2G to see any meaningful difference, and I'm assuming they are cold visits (typical in lab-based testing). For those exceptional users, this creates a difference from very poor (12 seconds) to still poor (9 seconds). Probably less because they'd normally have a warmed up cache. Is it empathetic to improve performance for those users? Very much yes, do it as far as you budget allows for. But as it comes to jQuery specifically, the conclusion is that its negative impact is negligible.

kllrnohj 4y ago
> They have to descent all the way to 2G to see any meaningful difference Somewhat shockingly according to https://www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/news/cw-journal/why-2g-wants-live-forever/ https://www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/news/cw-journal/why-2g-w... 12% of mobile network connections in the UK are still on 2G? That's surprisingly high usage, and would definitely be worth optimizing. Although usage that high would then explain why 2G shutdown is still 10 years(!) away for the UK. Phones still on 2G also seem likely the be phones that don't have the best of web browsers, so cold visits may still be more representative than it seems like it should be.
- seydor 4y ago
  Maybe it's home alarms
- yardstick 4y ago
  I wouldn’t read too much into 2G figures meaning 2G-only phones (or 3G). In my experience once you get out of populated areas connections often drop to 2G, even on my 5G capable iPhone. It’s mostly a coverage issue not a handset issue.
  - GordonS 4y ago
    It varies wildly depending on which network you are on. For example, on EE I get 4G coverage almost everywhere - even across remote parts of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. OTOH, my missus is with Three, and she rarely gets 4G at all outside of towns and cities.
    - yardstick 4y ago
      Yes good point. Also the phone signal can be deceptive if the backhaul is terrible (which I found with EE quite often).
  - kllrnohj 4y ago
    That's somewhat surprising. The US, which has plenty of rural areas with cell coverage, phased out 2G basically entirely over the past few years (only T-Mobile has a 2G network at all in the US now, and it's due to be sunset at the end of the year) Heck the US's 3G networks are all shutdown already, too, except for Verizon which is due to be turned off at the end of the year. Canada, also no stranger to rural areas, also has a complete shutdown of the 2G network. What's the struggle with UK getting 4G/LTE coverage out to those areas? Just no investment?
    - kodah 4y ago
      > The US, which has plenty of rural areas with cell coverage, phased out 2G basically entirely over the past few years (only T-Mobile has a 2G network at all in the US now, There's still big gaps. My parents live in the middle of nowhere. Their service isn't classified as 2G but the 5G service is so spotty and the signal is so weak it might as well be. The US has a documented history of producing data to avoid serving these areas, same thing with internet.
throwaway2037 4y ago
I am also excited about gov.uk tech blog posts. My point: They are always "looking in the mirror": "How can we become faster and more accessible?" Making digital gov't websites as accessible as possible is an incredibly important social priority for modern governments in the 21st century.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > Making digital gov't websites as accessible as possible is an incredibly important Indeed - websites are the most convenient way to access government services. So it's important that government websites don't rely on technology that isn't universally available. So I wish gov.uk sites would stop insisting on a smartphone (or SMS) for 2FA. Phones have these problems: * They cost a lot. * It's impossible for the average user to check the 2FA app is secure. * They run on batteries that go flat. * they are not owned by their owners. Please, always offer email as a 2FA choice.
  - solardev 4y ago
    > So it's important that government websites don't rely on technology that isn't universally available. IMO this should also mean they have offices and phone lines with minimal hold time. Not everyone can use the web fluently, and a website is a cheap replacement for human guidance.
GuB-42 4y ago
12 seconds down to 9 seconds is not negligible. What is negligible is 12 down to 11.999 seconds because you prematurely optimized. And even for "normal" users, shaving milliseconds matter. The general idea is that a UI should respond within 100ms to feel instantaneous. More than 1s and you interrupt the flow of thought. According to Google research, increasing page load time from 1s to 3s increases bounce rate by 32%. Performance matters, a lot. I am not living in the UK, but if I was, I would be happy to pay taxes that make government websites 25% faster. And even without the performance benefits, I consider removing dependencies a good thing. jQuery was great in the IE6 days, but now that even 10 year old browsers have decent JS, it is not as important as it once was. Modern versions of jQuery don't even support IE6 anymore.
- adamlett 4y ago
  12 seconds down to 9 seconds is not negligible That is not what the person you were replying to claimed. Their claim was that the overall effect of removing jQuery was negligible, and made a persuasive argument to support it, while also acknowledging that making modest improvements to the experience of a minority of users was an admirable achievement. What is negligible is 12 down to 11.999 seconds because you prematurely optimized Who could disagree with that verdict over an imagined scenario? I would even go so far as to say it could be considered negligible whether or not the optimization was premature or not. And even for "normal" users, shaving milliseconds matter. The general idea is that a UI should respond within 100ms to feel instantaneous. 9 seconds is pretty fucking far from 100ms. Far enough that I feel like shaving milliseconds off does not in fact matter to the majority of “normal” users. According to Google research, increasing page load time from 1s to 3s increases bounce rate by 32%. Fascinating. What does the research say about increasing the load time from 9 to 12 seconds? Those are after all the figures that are relevant to this discussion. Performance matters, a lot. I am not living in the UK, but if I was, I would be happy to pay taxes that make government websites 25% faster. I’m sure the UK government is thrilled that you approve of how they spend their tax revenue. But just to reiterate: We’re not talking about a 25% improvement of websites across the board. We’re talking about a 25% improvement of a specific page for a small subset of users. And even without the performance benefits, I consider removing dependencies a good thing. jQuery was great in the IE6 days, but now that even 10 year old browsers have decent JS, it is not as important as it once was. Modern versions of jQuery don't even support IE6 anymore. I doubt anyone disagrees with this as a general statement. Certainly it would probably be a mistake to take on jQuery as a dependency today. However, it does not cost nothing to remove jQuery from a code base that has depended on it for a long time. And the cost has to weighed against the risk and the cost, not least of which is the opportunity cost: What could the programmers tasked with removing jQuery have done with their time instead?
dccoolgai 4y ago
Exactly. It was cute for a few years, but these jQuery bashing thoughtpieces are so worn out now. As React and the long tail of frameworks slides into it's twilight years, it's clear in retrospect that jQuery was just a much more responsible and sound architecture (mostly because it cleaved to standards) than any of the things that spawned the 1000 "why I'm leaving jQuery for _this_" blogposts every day.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  I think you are conflating 2 different things. jQuery -> vanilla JS and jQuery -> framework (React/Vue/Angular/etc). Though I'm not sure where you getting the idea that JS/TS frontend frameworks are sliding into their "twilight years".
- calibas 4y ago
  You can improve website performance by replacing jQuery with vanilla JS. That's a statement of fact, not a "jQuery bashing thoughtpiece". Several years ago, jQuery was practically a requirement, but now vanilla JS offers many of the same features. There's a huge amount of older websites that relied upon jQuery but don't really need it anymore.
  - peterangular 4y ago
    Even as someone who's largely ripped out jQuery for vanilla JS I still totally understand why people use the API. Vanilla JS is terse comparative to jQuery short-hand syntax, especially for simple event bindings. Sure, I think jQuery these days is largely legacy developer ergonomics... I admit there are parts of those ergonomics that I miss. Especially when comparing it to modern tool-heavy transpiled/compiled/whatever JS development which is way more opinionated than using a simple utility library.
    - zerocrates 4y ago
      > Vanilla JS is terse comparative to jQuery short-hand syntax, especially for simple event bindings. You mean "verbose" here, probably?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
phyzome 4y ago
Governments have an obligation to serve all of their citizens, even those on 2G or similarly slow connections. They can't just say "eh, well, we don't want them as customers anyhow".
- fleddr 4y ago
  Where did I say otherwise?

by fleddr 4y ago

kllrnohj 4y ago

> They have to descent all the way to 2G to see any meaningful difference Somewhat shockingly according to https://www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/news/cw-journal/why-2g-wants-live-forever/ https://www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/news/cw-journal/why-2g-w... 12% of mobile network connections in the UK are still on 2G? That's surprisingly high usage, and would definitely be worth optimizing. Although usage that high would then explain why 2G shutdown is still 10 years(!) away for the UK. Phones still on 2G also seem likely the be phones that don't have the best of web browsers, so cold visits may still be more representative than it seems like it should be.

seydor 4y ago
Maybe it's home alarms
yardstick 4y ago
I wouldn’t read too much into 2G figures meaning 2G-only phones (or 3G). In my experience once you get out of populated areas connections often drop to 2G, even on my 5G capable iPhone. It’s mostly a coverage issue not a handset issue.
- GordonS 4y ago
  It varies wildly depending on which network you are on. For example, on EE I get 4G coverage almost everywhere - even across remote parts of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. OTOH, my missus is with Three, and she rarely gets 4G at all outside of towns and cities.
  - yardstick 4y ago
    Yes good point. Also the phone signal can be deceptive if the backhaul is terrible (which I found with EE quite often).
- kllrnohj 4y ago
  That's somewhat surprising. The US, which has plenty of rural areas with cell coverage, phased out 2G basically entirely over the past few years (only T-Mobile has a 2G network at all in the US now, and it's due to be sunset at the end of the year) Heck the US's 3G networks are all shutdown already, too, except for Verizon which is due to be turned off at the end of the year. Canada, also no stranger to rural areas, also has a complete shutdown of the 2G network. What's the struggle with UK getting 4G/LTE coverage out to those areas? Just no investment?
  - kodah 4y ago
    > The US, which has plenty of rural areas with cell coverage, phased out 2G basically entirely over the past few years (only T-Mobile has a 2G network at all in the US now, There's still big gaps. My parents live in the middle of nowhere. Their service isn't classified as 2G but the 5G service is so spotty and the signal is so weak it might as well be. The US has a documented history of producing data to avoid serving these areas, same thing with internet.

throwaway2037 4y ago

I am also excited about gov.uk tech blog posts. My point: They are always "looking in the mirror": "How can we become faster and more accessible?" Making digital gov't websites as accessible as possible is an incredibly important social priority for modern governments in the 21st century.

denton-scratch 4y ago
> Making digital gov't websites as accessible as possible is an incredibly important Indeed - websites are the most convenient way to access government services. So it's important that government websites don't rely on technology that isn't universally available. So I wish gov.uk sites would stop insisting on a smartphone (or SMS) for 2FA. Phones have these problems: * They cost a lot. * It's impossible for the average user to check the 2FA app is secure. * They run on batteries that go flat. * they are not owned by their owners. Please, always offer email as a 2FA choice.
- solardev 4y ago
  > So it's important that government websites don't rely on technology that isn't universally available. IMO this should also mean they have offices and phone lines with minimal hold time. Not everyone can use the web fluently, and a website is a cheap replacement for human guidance.

GuB-42 4y ago

12 seconds down to 9 seconds is not negligible. What is negligible is 12 down to 11.999 seconds because you prematurely optimized. And even for "normal" users, shaving milliseconds matter. The general idea is that a UI should respond within 100ms to feel instantaneous. More than 1s and you interrupt the flow of thought. According to Google research, increasing page load time from 1s to 3s increases bounce rate by 32%. Performance matters, a lot. I am not living in the UK, but if I was, I would be happy to pay taxes that make government websites 25% faster. And even without the performance benefits, I consider removing dependencies a good thing. jQuery was great in the IE6 days, but now that even 10 year old browsers have decent JS, it is not as important as it once was. Modern versions of jQuery don't even support IE6 anymore.

adamlett 4y ago
12 seconds down to 9 seconds is not negligible That is not what the person you were replying to claimed. Their claim was that the overall effect of removing jQuery was negligible, and made a persuasive argument to support it, while also acknowledging that making modest improvements to the experience of a minority of users was an admirable achievement. What is negligible is 12 down to 11.999 seconds because you prematurely optimized Who could disagree with that verdict over an imagined scenario? I would even go so far as to say it could be considered negligible whether or not the optimization was premature or not. And even for "normal" users, shaving milliseconds matter. The general idea is that a UI should respond within 100ms to feel instantaneous. 9 seconds is pretty fucking far from 100ms. Far enough that I feel like shaving milliseconds off does not in fact matter to the majority of “normal” users. According to Google research, increasing page load time from 1s to 3s increases bounce rate by 32%. Fascinating. What does the research say about increasing the load time from 9 to 12 seconds? Those are after all the figures that are relevant to this discussion. Performance matters, a lot. I am not living in the UK, but if I was, I would be happy to pay taxes that make government websites 25% faster. I’m sure the UK government is thrilled that you approve of how they spend their tax revenue. But just to reiterate: We’re not talking about a 25% improvement of websites across the board. We’re talking about a 25% improvement of a specific page for a small subset of users. And even without the performance benefits, I consider removing dependencies a good thing. jQuery was great in the IE6 days, but now that even 10 year old browsers have decent JS, it is not as important as it once was. Modern versions of jQuery don't even support IE6 anymore. I doubt anyone disagrees with this as a general statement. Certainly it would probably be a mistake to take on jQuery as a dependency today. However, it does not cost nothing to remove jQuery from a code base that has depended on it for a long time. And the cost has to weighed against the risk and the cost, not least of which is the opportunity cost: What could the programmers tasked with removing jQuery have done with their time instead?

dccoolgai 4y ago

Exactly. It was cute for a few years, but these jQuery bashing thoughtpieces are so worn out now. As React and the long tail of frameworks slides into it's twilight years, it's clear in retrospect that jQuery was just a much more responsible and sound architecture (mostly because it cleaved to standards) than any of the things that spawned the 1000 "why I'm leaving jQuery for _this_" blogposts every day.

joshstrange 4y ago
I think you are conflating 2 different things. jQuery -> vanilla JS and jQuery -> framework (React/Vue/Angular/etc). Though I'm not sure where you getting the idea that JS/TS frontend frameworks are sliding into their "twilight years".
calibas 4y ago
You can improve website performance by replacing jQuery with vanilla JS. That's a statement of fact, not a "jQuery bashing thoughtpiece". Several years ago, jQuery was practically a requirement, but now vanilla JS offers many of the same features. There's a huge amount of older websites that relied upon jQuery but don't really need it anymore.
- peterangular 4y ago
  Even as someone who's largely ripped out jQuery for vanilla JS I still totally understand why people use the API. Vanilla JS is terse comparative to jQuery short-hand syntax, especially for simple event bindings. Sure, I think jQuery these days is largely legacy developer ergonomics... I admit there are parts of those ergonomics that I miss. Especially when comparing it to modern tool-heavy transpiled/compiled/whatever JS development which is way more opinionated than using a simple utility library.
  - zerocrates 4y ago
    > Vanilla JS is terse comparative to jQuery short-hand syntax, especially for simple event bindings. You mean "verbose" here, probably?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

phyzome 4y ago

Governments have an obligation to serve all of their citizens, even those on 2G or similarly slow connections. They can't just say "eh, well, we don't want them as customers anyhow".

fleddr 4y ago
Where did I say otherwise?