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App sizes are out of control

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Re: App sizes are out of control

#21

Post by sidlls »

jamix wrote: post #6
rootlocus wrote: post #3

Six apps, six embedded web browsers.

Facebook did flirt with HTML5 but ditched it in the end. So that's not really true.

They went off the deep end with their "engineering" of the app (see: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3m5n2n/faceboo...).

It's really amusing to me when "engineers" start talking about the "scale" of the UI. It's a client. Thin vs. Fat aside, if it's that fat it's almost certainly a bloated mess of redundancy and what is called "overengineering" (which is actually underengineering--that is, a deficiency of the application of engineering and architecture principles to the design of the application).

Re: App sizes are out of control

#22

Post by kutkloon7 »

kutkloon7 wrote: post #16

I never understand where this increasing size comes from. For videos or hi-res photographs, I understand. There is however no reason that code, either compiled to a binary format or in a textual format, uses so much data. Heck, the memoirs of Casanova spans 3000 pages, and is 6,5 MB. People don't understand how incredibly large a megabyte is for simple code. Surely the 275 MB isn't all useful data (I wonder what comp…

While I was typing this comment ghostly pointed out some great blog entries: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14901602

Re: App sizes are out of control

#24

Post by Globz »

peapicker wrote: post #2

This is definitely getting to be a major problem. I've removed several apps for this reason as well. Code bloat = lost users

Yeah it is a problem, and so far the way most companies fixed this issue is by releasing a 'lite' version which of course is probably not feature complete but will be significantly faster to update and load.

If you are on a good network you probably won't ever notice such bloat until you run out of disk space or bust your download limit (Canada)

If I find an app to be too big for my taste I normally fall back to the web version if it exist at all but even then its hit or miss because sometimes the web app is pure complete garbage or worse than the app itself.

Re: App sizes are out of control

#25

Post by pmoriarty »

I remember when apps used to take less than 4k of memory, because 4k was all the RAM in your computer.

Then I remember downloading a 3 MB mp3 on my 9600 baud modem and being amazed at how much space was taken up by music that sounded realistic and not like just a bunch of beeps out of speakers that could only make beeps.

Then came the old joke about EMACS standing for "Eight Megs and Constantly Swapping".

Then I remember noticing that commercial software like games filled up a full CD's worth of space (back when software was distributed by physical CD's). After that it was common to ship software as multiple CD's, then multiple DVDs.

Now, is software even shipped on DVDs anymore? I just download everything, and, yeah, apps are still bloating, same as ever.

Re: App sizes are out of control

#26

Post by rlv-dan »

kutkloon7 wrote: post #16

I never understand where this increasing size comes from. For videos or hi-res photographs, I understand. There is however no reason that code, either compiled to a binary format or in a textual format, uses so much data. Heck, the memoirs of Casanova spans 3000 pages, and is 6,5 MB. People don't understand how incredibly large a megabyte is for simple code. Surely the 275 MB isn't all useful data (I wonder what comp…

Could it be that whenever coders today need some fairly trivial functionality, they tend to go out and find a library that contains it. So you end up with lots and lots of libraries where only a tiny bits of them are used. Just a hypothesis though.

Re: App sizes are out of control

#27

Post by rootlocus »

potatolicious wrote: post #12
anonacct37 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that add up to much in terms of app size? I was under the impression most embedded web browsers used platform web view components?

You're right - there should be minimal (if any) size bloat because of the use of browsers on iOS. You're not allowed to include your own browser, and can only use the platform's web view, which is not duplicated on a per-app basis. There are many culprits for app bloat, but using a browser is most certainly not one of them.

I'm sincerely curious what would be the worst offenders for app bloat.

Re: App sizes are out of control

#28

Post by WA »

rootlocus wrote: post #3

Six apps, six embedded web browsers.

Apparently, Crosswalk [1] for Android adds "only" about 20MB.

I just compiled a Cordova-based Android-app without Crosswalk, but also without images. Just JavaScript, HTML and CSS and a few plugins and the APK is [1]: https://crosswalk-project.org/

Re: App sizes are out of control

#29

Post by deft »

rlv-dan wrote: post #26
kutkloon7 wrote: post #16

I never understand where this increasing size comes from. For videos or hi-res photographs, I understand. There is however no reason that code, either compiled to a binary format or in a textual format, uses so much data. Heck, the memoirs of Casanova spans 3000 pages, and is 6,5 MB. People don't understand how incredibly large a megabyte is for simple code. Surely the 275 MB isn't all useful data (I wonder what comp…

Could it be that whenever coders today need some fairly trivial functionality, they tend to go out and find a library that contains it. So you end up with lots and lots of libraries where only a tiny bits of them are used. Just a hypothesis though.

I'm pretty sure this is part of it. Remember leftpad? For electron based apps they're just bundling all of chrome which explains the size too.

Re: App sizes are out of control

#30

Post by vec »

kutkloon7 wrote: post #16

I never understand where this increasing size comes from. For videos or hi-res photographs, I understand. There is however no reason that code, either compiled to a binary format or in a textual format, uses so much data. Heck, the memoirs of Casanova spans 3000 pages, and is 6,5 MB. People don't understand how incredibly large a megabyte is for simple code. Surely the 275 MB isn't all useful data (I wonder what comp…

A huge chunk of that probably goes to, well, videos or hi-res photographs to be used in building the UI. Hi-res splash screens plus a bunch of hero images plus 2+ prerendered sizes of each display element for different pixel densities plus a dozen 30 second tutorial videos can easily add up to a couple hundred megs of assets alone.
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