6 ms·

Well it wouldn't be that way if it were not for all the JavaScript. If we just kept on doing server-side scripting (PHP, CGI/Perl...) and used JS only where abs

Well it wouldn't be that way if it were not for all the JavaScript. If we just kept on doing server-side scripting (PHP, CGI/Perl...) and used JS only where absolutely necessary (video players, games...) like in the early 2000s, it would all work fine on 15 year old hardware. But instead we use the browser as an OS and have tons of JS on simple news sites.

dredmorbius 2y ago
I suspect DOM modelling/rendering also has an impact as I've surfed with JS off, using Firefox on an older (mid-aughts) iMac running Linux ... and can't get much past 2--4 tabs before performance becomes absolutely unacceptable. Instrumentation of browsers to show performance constraints remains poor and/or a Black Art, so I'm somewhat winging this. The same system performs wonderfully with scripts, non-browser based requests (e.g., wget, curl), terminal-mode browsers (usually w3m or lynx), and local applications (mailers, audio ripping / playback, GIMP, word-processing, and of course shell tools, as well as a few occasional games perhaps.
- h2zizzle 2y ago
  >Instrumentation of browsers to show performance constraints remains poor and/or a Black Art Which makes the loss of all our DEI programs over the past month all the more painful.
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    ?
    - h2zizzle 2y ago
      The employment/mentorship pipeline for Black artists seems to have been decimated.
      - dredmorbius 2y ago
        Black arts, or dark arts, refer to a different concept: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_arts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_arts>
        h2zizzle 2y ago
        Right. It's a topical joke based on the ambiguity of your terminology and current events (and probably did not deserve a downvote). Further, the history of persecution of magic pracitioners would qualify them for DEI outreach. So it works either way. ;)
        dredmorbius 2y ago
        <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295889> It's rare for jokes to play well: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7522885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7522885>. Particularly where it's not clear whether or not someone's making a joke, or is merely misinterpreting language. A common occurrence where many participants' first language is not English. And especially where the joke itself runs into a tired political fracture.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tuyiown 2y ago
The problem is not JS per se, it's sloppy client code on a very permissive runtime. Otherwise it wouldn't have creeped into app with electron.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Which is a reflection of those writing the sloppy client code in first place. Back in the 8 and 16 bit days, companies managed to make software available across all of them, or at least the most common platforms, in a time where performance called for hand written Assembly, and each hardware platform was its own snowflake. And yet in the age of high level programming languages, the best most folks can think of is shipping a browser alongside the application, not only they show complete disregard for the platform, they don't really care about the Web, rather ChromeOS. And yes this includes VSCode, which has tons of C++ and Rust code, and partial use of WebGL rendering, to work around the exact point of being based on Electron.

dredmorbius 2y ago

I suspect DOM modelling/rendering also has an impact as I've surfed with JS off, using Firefox on an older (mid-aughts) iMac running Linux ... and can't get much past 2--4 tabs before performance becomes absolutely unacceptable. Instrumentation of browsers to show performance constraints remains poor and/or a Black Art, so I'm somewhat winging this. The same system performs wonderfully with scripts, non-browser based requests (e.g., wget, curl), terminal-mode browsers (usually w3m or lynx), and local applications (mailers, audio ripping / playback, GIMP, word-processing, and of course shell tools, as well as a few occasional games perhaps.

h2zizzle 2y ago
>Instrumentation of browsers to show performance constraints remains poor and/or a Black Art Which makes the loss of all our DEI programs over the past month all the more painful.
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  ?
  - h2zizzle 2y ago
    The employment/mentorship pipeline for Black artists seems to have been decimated.
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      Black arts, or dark arts, refer to a different concept: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_arts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_arts>
      - h2zizzle 2y ago
        Right. It's a topical joke based on the ambiguity of your terminology and current events (and probably did not deserve a downvote). Further, the history of persecution of magic pracitioners would qualify them for DEI outreach. So it works either way. ;)
        dredmorbius 2y ago
        <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295889> It's rare for jokes to play well: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7522885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7522885>. Particularly where it's not clear whether or not someone's making a joke, or is merely misinterpreting language. A common occurrence where many participants' first language is not English. And especially where the joke itself runs into a tired political fracture.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

tuyiown 2y ago

The problem is not JS per se, it's sloppy client code on a very permissive runtime. Otherwise it wouldn't have creeped into app with electron.

pjmlp 2y ago
Which is a reflection of those writing the sloppy client code in first place. Back in the 8 and 16 bit days, companies managed to make software available across all of them, or at least the most common platforms, in a time where performance called for hand written Assembly, and each hardware platform was its own snowflake. And yet in the age of high level programming languages, the best most folks can think of is shipping a browser alongside the application, not only they show complete disregard for the platform, they don't really care about the Web, rather ChromeOS. And yes this includes VSCode, which has tons of C++ and Rust code, and partial use of WebGL rendering, to work around the exact point of being based on Electron.