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The average size of Web pages is now the average size of a Doom install

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Re: The average size of Web pages is now the average size of a Doom install

#171

Post by pessimizer »

snowwrestler wrote: post #110

The Doom install image was 35x the size of the Apollo guidance computer. Thirty-five times! Apollo software got us to the moon. Doom wasted millions of man-hours on a video game. My point of course is that these comparisons are not actually that illuminating. Are web pages much heavier than they need to be? Yes. This presentation very capably talks about that problem: http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm Do…

Doom was delivering an experience far more complex than the Apollo guidance computer was. The average webpage is not. It's delivering an experience as complex as a pamphlet with a few phone numbers on it.

Re: The average size of Web pages is now the average size of a Doom install

#172

Post by harryf »

snowwrestler wrote: post #110

The Doom install image was 35x the size of the Apollo guidance computer. Thirty-five times! Apollo software got us to the moon. Doom wasted millions of man-hours on a video game. My point of course is that these comparisons are not actually that illuminating. Are web pages much heavier than they need to be? Yes. This presentation very capably talks about that problem: http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm Do…

> Are web pages much heavier than they need to be? Yes

What about the question "do web pages work any better than they did in 2007?" when we were using full page reloads and server side logic instead of Javascipt tricks.

I see so much basic brokenness on the web today from the back button not working to horribly overloaded news websites with mystery-meat mobile navigation I find myself wondering what have we really achieved in the last 9 years? This stuff used to work

Re: The average size of Web pages is now the average size of a Doom install

#173

Post by detaro »

CaptSpify wrote: post #168

disclaimer: my own blog - https://blog.thekyel.com/?anchor=Why_I_Block_Scripts_and_Ads I kept looking for a "minimal" blogging platform, but they all had too much bloat/JS/etc. I guess minimal means different things to different people. I ended up just writing my own. The biggest post I have is 7.41 KB. I used to be interested in front-end design, but since it's the industry standard to use $latest_framework, instead…

One extreme end of the scale ;)

I feel like investing a few hundred extra bytes on some styling might be worth it, a la http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ vs http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/

Re: The average size of Web pages is now the average size of a Doom install

#174

Post by bradleyjg »

manaskarekar wrote: post #170
Eerie wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apollo software got us to the moon. Doom wasted millions of man-hours on a video game. How many millions of man-hours Apollo project wasted for a PR stunt?

Mandatory: Benefits from Apollo [PDF] https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/80660main_ApolloFS....

This argument proves too much. If we wanted better sneaker materials or retractable football stadium roofs surely we could have accomplished those tasks for far less money. The opportunity cost of the Apollo missions were enormous, even if there were positive outcomes that spun out of it.

Or to put it more elegantly: "Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."

Re: The average size of Web pages is now the average size of a Doom install

#175

Post by CaptSpify »

detaro wrote: post #173
CaptSpify wrote: post #168

disclaimer: my own blog - https://blog.thekyel.com/?anchor=Why_I_Block_Scripts_and_Ads I kept looking for a "minimal" blogging platform, but they all had too much bloat/JS/etc. I guess minimal means different things to different people. I ended up just writing my own. The biggest post I have is 7.41 KB. I used to be interested in front-end design, but since it's the industry standard to use $latest_framework, instead…

One extreme end of the scale ;) I feel like investing a few hundred extra bytes on some styling might be worth it, a la http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ vs http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/

I'm of the mindset that our browsers are built backwards. For "content-oriented" sites, we should present text, and give the users tools in their browsers to present them as the user sees fit. Instead, we expect the site to design it. Something like Firefox Reader View.

Some people may like bettermotherfuckingwebsite better, but I personally don.t

"presentation-oriented" sites are a different story, of course

Re: The average size of Web pages is now the average size of a Doom install

#176

Post by douche »

d33 wrote: post #49
jessriedel wrote: post #15

I'm skeptical that developers talking to each other about how bad web bloat is will change anything. They will still face the same incentives in terms of ad revenue, costs of optimization, etc. Here's a random idea that might have more potential: create an adblocker browser plugin that also colors URLs based on how slow they are expected to load, e.g., smoothly from blue to red. The scores could be centrally calculat…

I would say that a possible solution is also to better rank websites that mention the checksums of their external resources and make web browsers keep them in cache much longer... if pretty much every website uses jQuery, perhaps we should ship jQuery with the web browser?

Hmmmm, or javascript could be standardized on something that isn't a barely-working kludge with no batteries included? If something like jQuery or Lodash is basically table-stakes for doing anything really worthwhile, then just maybe that de facto standard should be made de jure.

Re: The average size of Web pages is now the average size of a Doom install

#177

Post by manaskarekar »

bradleyjg wrote: post #174
manaskarekar wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandatory: Benefits from Apollo [PDF] https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/80660main_ApolloFS....

This argument proves too much. If we wanted better sneaker materials or retractable football stadium roofs surely we could have accomplished those tasks for far less money. The opportunity cost of the Apollo missions were enormous, even if there were positive outcomes that spun out of it. Or to put it more elegantly: "Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not…

I somewhat agree with what you're saying, but eventually it's hard to prove if one way benefits us more than the other, because the benefits of the Apollo program perhaps influenced the space endeavors that improve our life today.

It's definitely debatable and hard to gauge. I just thought I'd throw in the link to show the other side of the argument.

Re: The average size of Web pages is now the average size of a Doom install

#178

Post by throwaway_1011 »

kevincox wrote: post #158
hyperpape wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that putting JQuery in the browser is a bad idea, but the second part of the argument, that the browser will have the libraries in cache is not really that reliable. Here's some notes I collected on the subject: http://justinblank.com/notebooks/BrowserCacheEffectiveness.h... .

I was definitely speaking whimsically because it is a huge chicken and egg problem. But theoretically if every site that used jQuery referenced a version at https://code.jquery.com/ there would be a very good hit ratio, even considering different versions. However we are a very, very far way away from that.

That may seem like a good solution for some sites, but the name of the page and the requestor's IP address and other information is also 'leaked' to jquery.com. This is not always welcomed. For example, a company has an acquisition tracking site (or other legal-related site) and the name of the targets are part of the page name (goobler, foxulus, etc.) which get sent as the referrer page and IP address to jquery.com or other third party sites/CDNs. While not a security threat, you may unwittingly be recommending an unwanted information leak.

Re: The average size of Web pages is now the average size of a Doom install

#179

Post by detaro »

CaptSpify wrote: post #175
detaro wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One extreme end of the scale ;) I feel like investing a few hundred extra bytes on some styling might be worth it, a la http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ vs http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/

I'm of the mindset that our browsers are built backwards. For "content-oriented" sites, we should present text, and give the users tools in their browsers to present them as the user sees fit. Instead, we expect the site to design it. Something like Firefox Reader View. Some people may like bettermotherfuckingwebsite better, but I personally don.t "presentation-oriented" sites are a different story, of course

Basic styles don't mess with Reader View or other customization, so I don't see a large downside to include them, they just make it nicer for people not using such tools.

Unless the point is to get people to use different tools?

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