4 ms·

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,

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?

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?