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I disagree that they've gotten smaller. Ember is 47 kb, they say, but you need jquery + handlebars + ember + ember data in practice, for a total of 370 kb mini

by Joeri 13y ago

I disagree that they've gotten smaller. Ember is 47 kb, they say, but you need jquery + handlebars + ember + ember data in practice, for a total of 370 kb minified but not gzipped, which is huge. Or look at backbone, which requires underscore, zepto and json2 (if you care about ie7) for a total of 60 kb, and to really use it at scale you need marionette which bumps the total to 80 kb. Angular clocks in at 80 kb (with json2). None of these frameworks support splitting te payload, so you pay this loading cost at the worst time possible: on the first pageload. Now. Let's look at the legacy frameworks you mention. Mootools is 100 kb total, which puts it on equal ground with backbone+marionette and angular. Yui core bootstraps in 30 kb and loads in the rest on-demand so you don't feel it as a user. Even the biggest most bloated framework of all, extjs, can bootstrap a first page in 500 kb ungzipped, which is not that much more than ember. Your page load performance will not be better with the new frameworks than the old. In fact, if you're not careful and load too many 'focused' libraries your initial page load will be worse. What is the value of orthogonality and focus if it does not improve the developer experience or user experience? Bah humbug, get off my lawn ;)

gingerlime 13y ago
I honestly don't understand the obsession with js package sizes. Of course, the initial page load is important, you want to minify, gzip and make this as fast as possible. But once it is loaded (and cached), that's all there is to it. It's a one-off cost, which I think is perfectly acceptable for most users using a single-page app. I personally think ease of development, flexibility, documentation and project long-term viability are far greater concerns when choosing a framework, than whether it weights 100kb less (or more).
- alipang 13y ago
  Agreed, this seems like some kind of strange competition/point of pride between javascript libraries. The smallest slightest advantage in the quality of your application instantly offsets whatever extra time you spent on loading 100k extra javascript. The only advantage I see is in moving away the ember style. It's ridiculous how frameworks get a free pass from violating single-resposibility by claiming to be "opinionated".

by Joeri 13y ago

gingerlime 13y ago

I honestly don't understand the obsession with js package sizes. Of course, the initial page load is important, you want to minify, gzip and make this as fast as possible. But once it is loaded (and cached), that's all there is to it. It's a one-off cost, which I think is perfectly acceptable for most users using a single-page app. I personally think ease of development, flexibility, documentation and project long-term viability are far greater concerns when choosing a framework, than whether it weights 100kb less (or more).

alipang 13y ago
Agreed, this seems like some kind of strange competition/point of pride between javascript libraries. The smallest slightest advantage in the quality of your application instantly offsets whatever extra time you spent on loading 100k extra javascript. The only advantage I see is in moving away the ember style. It's ridiculous how frameworks get a free pass from violating single-resposibility by claiming to be "opinionated".