5 ms·

In the source: <noscript> <center> <b>notice</b> <p>javascript required to view this site</p> <b>why</b> <p>measured improvement

• tempodox 3y ago
  Indeed, that was a relatively recent change that I never understood. It had been working without JS for a long time before that. And page loads became slower, not faster, for me.
  • masklinn 3y ago
    > And page loads became slower, not faster, for me. They're not exclusive, smaller server loads doesn't mean the experience is better for the client. For instance the server might just stop doing server-side template rendering. Instead it sends one static page, then the client requests and render the JSON for the article, or maybe the page only contains the JSON for the article instead of the rendered one. Then the template rendering cost stops showing up on the server, because it's not performed on the client, and serialising to JSON is almost certainly cheaper than rendering an ad-hoc and half-assed template format. But now the client has to perform a bunch of extra requests (to fetch the javascript and possibly the json) and it pays the cost for the template rendering, and that might be even halfer-assed, and more expensive, because it's out of sight of the server loads / logs. The result is that the server has gone from, say, 80ms CPU to 40ms CPU per page (which definitely qualifies as a "measured improvement in server performance"), but the client now needs an additional 300ms to reach loading completion.
    • blowski 3y ago
      Good description. And the site owner may have decided that trade-off works well for them - they are not incompetent or evil just because a few niche but noisy users have a moan.
      • masklinn 3y ago
        At the same time, the users are rightfully complaining, their experience has been made noticeably worse in multiple ways to no benefit. Worse, they essentially get taunted.
        • samtheprogram 3y ago
          > the users are rightfully complaining [because] their experience has been made noticeably worse in multiple ways to no benefit Depends on your definition of rightfully. This is a ad-free, cost-free website. If they want to reduce server load or prioritize something other than non-JS experience, it’s their prerogative. Especially when the complaint is “it’s slower on my client” and not “I can no longer access the data without JavaScript” > Worse, they essentially get taunted. Please explain?
    • pcunning 3y ago
      You are 100% right. Server was pegged at 100 and the family (me) were complaining about email not working (who runs their own mail server any more). We needed to shed load. Some things went to GitHub pages (https://github.com/WardCunningham/remodeling https://github.com/WardCunningham/remodeling) and the rest turned into simple content loaded by that. There were some more complexities because of SSL and old OS but it works. Things have evolved since and will continue to evolve but expect the original wiki to remain accessible in some form.
      • smusamashah 3y ago
        If the wiki is not being updated anymore (or is it?) than why not just host the original one (not the current JS one) as a whole on github pages? Won't this save server costs?
• skrebbel 3y ago
  Sometimes I feel like all 7 people who have JS disabled have an HN account so they can tell people that their site doesn't work with JS disabled
  • postalrat 3y ago
    Makes sense if they don't need JavaScript for hn.
  • kevincrane 3y ago
    [flagged]
  • lynx23 3y ago
    It just violates the KISS principle too much when the site in question is mostly presenting documents. I can see JS being useful if you have some sort of SPA app. But essentially docs with JS are a total no-go. Why do I need to fire up a 50MB binary to read a simple document again? Ahh, because reasons, I see...
    • chefandy 3y ago
      Whether or not something is 'simple' depends on what type of simplicity you're optimizing for and your use case/requirements. Front-end js frameworks could make development much simpler than relying on vanilla code or back-end frameworks to accomplish the same tasks. Personally, I don't see the benefit of defining simplicity by how much work the browser has to do unless there's a specific, tangible requirement that demands it. Accessibility isn't any more of a problem than it is with HTML. For screen readers, et al it's still something that needs to be deliberately incorporated into the document structure, and modern frameworks are more than capable of handling it. What about older browsers with crappy JS implementations? Front-end frameworks have tools designed to extend support to much older browsers with limited JS support. The percentage of people who have access to a web browser but can't use javascript applications is vanishingly small. When I've worked with people making publicly-funded tools for which accessibility must accommodate people with very limited technical means-- unhoused people, for example-- developers tend to skip the web interface altogether and go with SMS combined with telephone or in-person service. JS is not the barrier. Obviously that 50MB binary is hyperbole, but the baseline Vue include is 16k. It's certainly easier to make make front-end JS heavy and unreliable than plain static HTML, but it's pretty easy to avoid it, and design that poor would probably fuck up plain-old HTML and CSS just as bad. The fact is that most users do appreciate the dynamic features and responsiveness that is only possible with js. If you don't, and want to exclude yourself from modern web functionality, then be my guest. I think it's pretty strange that you'd expect other people to go out of their way to accommodate your rather uncommon preferences to make an experience most users consider worse and doesn't work towards satisfying any tangible business needs.
• insulanus 3y ago
  It would be great if there was a read-only version of the site that can be crawled. Much easier to do that supporting both HTTP and JS for both read and write.