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1 reason why not to: loss of control. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but I do not want to rely on ANY external providers - not even when it's Google.

by akie 18y ago

teej 18y ago
If you're really that paranoid, monitor and verify. If there are issues, you can change hosting optins. You don't mitigate risk by doing everything yourself.
- ars 18y ago
  What? How are you supposed to monitor and verify that google is up from the point of view of the client? If you do it locally it's either fully working, or fully down, and you don't have javascript errors when parts work and parts don't.
  - Encosia 18y ago
    If you're worried about Google's reliability, you could always test for typeof(jQuery) !== 'undefined' before assuming it had loaded. Then, you can inject a script element referencing a copy of jQuery on your server if it hadn't. In practice, I would think the chances of Google's entire CDN going down are the very least of your worries though.
    - ars 18y ago
      That's quite an interesting idea, but I'd be worried about it running too soon, the browser doesn't give you a "gave up on downloading something" event. Google goes down more than you think - it's not usually that google itself is down, but rather that DNS didn't look them up, or some anoying routing issue. It's happened to me, so I know it does happen.
jonknee 18y ago
Do you provide your own internet bandwidth? You have to rely on external providers at some point and in all likelihood Google is better at keeping the lights on than you are.
- akie 18y ago
  True, Google is probably better at keeping their servers up... but I prefer to reduce my external dependencies anyway. Right now, I only have to rely on my hosting partner - which means I'm dependent on just ONE party. If something goes wrong, I call 'em and kick their lazy asses :) Chances are that things are up and running in no time. Remember when Amazon's cloud storage went offline last July? This meant all kinds of websites relying on that service were offline as well. No-one knew what was happening, why it was happening, and when it would be back online. I don't need that - seriously :)
  - wvenable 18y ago
    If course you could mirror all your resources locally and quickly switch over if Google were to go down.
- streety 18y ago
  I've never really understood that argument. Assuming that your site is totally down when your server goes down and that you rely on jquery so heavily that loosing it essentially renders your site unusable it doesn't seem to matter how much better google is at delivering content than you are. If you can manage an uptime greater than 50% the likelihood is that your server and google will be down at different times so the downtime is additive.
  - jbert 18y ago
    I think the argument is that google is an order of magnitude or so better at downtime than you are, so any google-created downtime is lost in the noise.

1 reason why not to: loss of control. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but I do not want to rely on ANY external providers - not even when it's Google.

by akie 18y ago

1 reason why not to: loss of control. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but I do not want to rely on ANY external providers - not even when it's Google.

teej 18y ago

If you're really that paranoid, monitor and verify. If there are issues, you can change hosting optins. You don't mitigate risk by doing everything yourself.

ars 18y ago
What? How are you supposed to monitor and verify that google is up from the point of view of the client? If you do it locally it's either fully working, or fully down, and you don't have javascript errors when parts work and parts don't.
- Encosia 18y ago
  If you're worried about Google's reliability, you could always test for typeof(jQuery) !== 'undefined' before assuming it had loaded. Then, you can inject a script element referencing a copy of jQuery on your server if it hadn't. In practice, I would think the chances of Google's entire CDN going down are the very least of your worries though.
  - ars 18y ago
    That's quite an interesting idea, but I'd be worried about it running too soon, the browser doesn't give you a "gave up on downloading something" event. Google goes down more than you think - it's not usually that google itself is down, but rather that DNS didn't look them up, or some anoying routing issue. It's happened to me, so I know it does happen.

jonknee 18y ago

Do you provide your own internet bandwidth? You have to rely on external providers at some point and in all likelihood Google is better at keeping the lights on than you are.

akie 18y ago
True, Google is probably better at keeping their servers up... but I prefer to reduce my external dependencies anyway. Right now, I only have to rely on my hosting partner - which means I'm dependent on just ONE party. If something goes wrong, I call 'em and kick their lazy asses :) Chances are that things are up and running in no time. Remember when Amazon's cloud storage went offline last July? This meant all kinds of websites relying on that service were offline as well. No-one knew what was happening, why it was happening, and when it would be back online. I don't need that - seriously :)
- wvenable 18y ago
  If course you could mirror all your resources locally and quickly switch over if Google were to go down.
streety 18y ago
I've never really understood that argument. Assuming that your site is totally down when your server goes down and that you rely on jquery so heavily that loosing it essentially renders your site unusable it doesn't seem to matter how much better google is at delivering content than you are. If you can manage an uptime greater than 50% the likelihood is that your server and google will be down at different times so the downtime is additive.
- jbert 18y ago
  I think the argument is that google is an order of magnitude or so better at downtime than you are, so any google-created downtime is lost in the noise.