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Maybe it's time we make a simple web page 100KB again? Is there some kind of CDN minification, adblocking and compression service? Maybe even server side render
by Snoozus 10mo ago
Maybe it's time we make a simple web page 100KB again?
Is there some kind of CDN minification, adblocking and compression service?
Maybe even server side rendering of websites?
Then a smartphone would work fine with 1GB of RAM and everyone could be happy.
- Maxion 10mo agoSimple web pages can be made small with modern tooling, e.g. AstroJS. The problem is that most web pages these days fundamentally are not simple. Rather than trying to make web pages small, the real effort would be in designing web pages to be simple. The large majority of software devs, PMs and the like don't really know how to do anything else than a Node + React webapp.
- sksksk 10mo agoI've come to the opinion that for the vast majority of apps I've built, it could all be built using HTML + CSS (all built server side). I can sprinkle in little bits of interactivity using something like HTMX. And I'll have a website that is very easy to optimise, has phenomenal backwards compatibility, and gets rid of a whole class of issues associated with SPAs. I often regret in my career not pushing back more on "requirements" that ended up requiring a more complicated app, whereas the customer would have been happier with a simpler solution.
- altmanaltman 10mo agoI guess you're right, but it's more of a curve, though. Once you get to any decent level of complexity, it actually helps to have a framework instead of just going all HTML+CSS. Also it helps having something standard as react (that every web developer should fundamentally understand) than doing your custom stuff if other people will be working on it in the future. There's a lot to say about the side effects of frameworks but there's a reason why everything converges towards that.
- z3t4 10mo agoI think it's the other way around, a framework will get you up and running quickly, but then it becomes technical dept, and if your app is complicated you will end up fighting the framework. If you write something from scratch it will take a while to reach to the abstraction level where you can work fast. But then you have a fully custom abstraction layer that is not a "one size fits all" but custom tailored for your needs.
- chrisweekly 10mo agoGood luck with hiring, onboarding, and maintenance of your bespoke solution. Also with your resume when seeking your next gig. For any serious project, ignore community and ecosystem health at your peril. To be clear, we're talking about framework selection, not leftpad vs DIY.
- Snoozus 10mo agoI agree, most websites allow complex flows. But I suspect, that most loads don't ever touch those. There is probably an automated way to deliver just a flat page, and maybe even allow for the top 5 interactions without loading all the frameworks and libraries.
- gloxkiqcza 10mo agoObligatory mentions: https://motherfuckingwebsite.com https://motherfuckingwebsite.com http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com
- zozbot234 10mo agoObligatory mention: https://www.downloadmoreram.com https://www.downloadmoreram.com
- markbao 10mo agoMost people have phones that can handle webpages with 1-5MB JS bundles. Why artificially limit what you can do on the web? Why limit ourselves to 1GB RAM when more resources means tech becomes more useful? Returning to simple webpages is popular idea on HN but it’s like wanting a car with no backup camera and crank windows. If your goal is to have your car be as simple as possible, then sure, but that’s not the case for most people. Most people want their cars to be safe and convenient, and their webpages useful and rich, more so than they want to return to some idealized simplicity. A simple webpage or blog with minimal styling that runs as an ARM binary on a TV remote is cool and fun but it’s not economically useful. It’s the equivalent of a manual scooter. We can build better apps (in the same way that car manufacturers can build less crappy infotainment systems) but optimizing for scarcity isn’t the answer in a world where abundance tends to grow. (Edit: your downvotes mean nothing to me, I’ve seen what gets upvoted!)
- kortilla 10mo agoYour mistake is assuming there is some correlation with usefulness and size. The JS Gmail UI from 15 years ago was just as functional as the one today. Websites that are supposed to be simple lists end up bloated and laggy because of really poor JS that makes one request per item iteratively to populate a list.
- markbao 10mo agoI do like the old JS Gmail UI. But the current JS Gmail UI doesn’t feel any slower. It is cluttered with more features, but some of them I find useful. (Displaying my calendar and being able to accept invites right in Gmail being a big one.)
- avhon1 10mo agoAs someone who used the HTML gmail interface right up until google pulled the plug: the JS version is much slower to load. Every morning, I get to have about 10 seconds thinking about how it used to be faster.
- 10mo ago
- yourusername 10mo agoAnd if someone could make a chat program not use 1 GB of RAM that would be great.
- m-schuetz 10mo agoThe majority of space is usually ads and I doubt websites want to reduce that.
- immibis 10mo agoApple could make it happen. For some reason when an iPhone won't load something, people blame the thing instead of the phone. If they made Safari show an error page when a page used more than 256MB of RAM, suddenly the problem would disappear overnight.
- kccqzy 10mo agoNo. Safari is already so buggy that it often crashes with the “a problem repeatedly occurred” message. That same message is shown when a webpage requests too much RAM. The problem did not disappear. People rightfully blame iPhone.
- M95D 10mo ago> 1GB of RAM and everyone could be happy I remember a time when I was surfing the web with 256MB and a 5KB/s modem.
- tim333 10mo agoI was a bit shocked the other day when Chrome gave me a complaint about memory shortage and said I had something like 200GB in website data on my 256GB laptop(!) All put there by various web pages without my knowledge.
- venturecruelty 10mo agoMaybe it's time to not let a single company buy all the RAM.