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How and why we removed jQuery from Gov.uk

insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk

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Re: How and why we removed jQuery from Gov.uk

#31

Post by hotpotamus »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #7
ncr100 wrote: post #4

Nice to see transparency in government. Pride in work. Helpful stuff. Keep it up!

GOV.uk is the only part of the UK government that I consistently liked for the past few years.

Speaking as someone from the US, The BBC nature and science documentaries are I think the best in the world (in English at least), especially anything that David Attenborough gets involved with.

My suspicion is that the US actually has national natural history and science collections/museums that are on par with the UK these days, but we lack something like the BBC to "market" them for lack of a better word.

Re: How and why we removed jQuery from Gov.uk

#32

Post by davidgerard »

antipaul wrote: post #11

This team is really something when it comes to transparency. For a government entity, an unreasonably large amount of their work is on GitHub. Examples: Front end design system: https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-frontend Project board: https://github.com/orgs/alphagov/projects/4 Requests for comment: https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-rfcs Gov.uk infrastructure as code (WIP): https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-infrastr…

and the Open Goverment Licence was specifically designed to be compatible both ways with CC-by.

(why not just use CC-by? Because someone had legal questions about some of the fine details. But the practical effects are as if they just did.)

in fact, its use is directly recommended where reasonable and feasible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Government_Licence

Re: How and why we removed jQuery from Gov.uk

#34

Post by antipaul »

thfuran wrote: post #24
antipaul wrote: post #11

This team is really something when it comes to transparency. For a government entity, an unreasonably large amount of their work is on GitHub. Examples: Front end design system: https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-frontend Project board: https://github.com/orgs/alphagov/projects/4 Requests for comment: https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-rfcs Gov.uk infrastructure as code (WIP): https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-infrastr…

>For a government entity, an unreasonably large amount of their work is on GitHub. Perhaps GitHub shouldn't be the venue, but I think you have that backwards. Most government entities share unreasonably little of their code.

Yea my bad! I mean that "an unreasonably large amount of their work is publicly available."

Re: How and why we removed jQuery from Gov.uk

#35

Post by icedchai »

b5 wrote: post #22

For anyone thinking that this is an insignificant saving of "only" 32kb, it's really important to remember that many of the site's users will be amongst the poorest in society. Many of them will be accessing it using the oldest, slowest devices; things far slower than the average HN reader's last few phones. Anything that can be done make the site work better for them is worth the effort. Terence Eden has a really go…

If you load www.gov.uk, you'll see it's loading several fonts (each of which is roughly equal to the size of jquery), google analytics, several javascript bundles, and other crap. It is far from simple effective HTML as described by the link.

jQuery is probably the least of their problems. And ironically, the blog with the jquery article on it loads jquery! I realize it's not part of the same site.

Re: How and why we removed jQuery from Gov.uk

#36

Post by icedchai »

zhfliz wrote: post #30
labrador wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that a phone browser that noticeably slows down for 32k is probably fairly useless. Why not get poor people better phones instead of spending money optimizing for crap?

are you the one going to buy everyone in UK a new phone? and fund their data plans?

Practically speaking, if their phone can't handle 32K of jQuery, it probably can't handle Google or any other search engine they'd be using to find the site in the first place.

Re: How and why we removed jQuery from Gov.uk

#37

Post by labrador »

icedchai wrote: post #36
zhfliz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you the one going to buy everyone in UK a new phone? and fund their data plans?

Practically speaking, if their phone can't handle 32K of jQuery, it probably can't handle Google or any other search engine they'd be using to find the site in the first place.

My point exactly

Re: How and why we removed jQuery from Gov.uk

#38

Post by labrador »

zhfliz wrote: post #30
labrador wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that a phone browser that noticeably slows down for 32k is probably fairly useless. Why not get poor people better phones instead of spending money optimizing for crap?

are you the one going to buy everyone in UK a new phone? and fund their data plans?

In US poor people can get "Obama" phones. I guess the UK is behind on this issue.

https://www.obamaphone.com/

Re: How and why we removed jQuery from Gov.uk

#39

Post by thfuran »

antipaul wrote: post #34
thfuran wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For a government entity, an unreasonably large amount of their work is on GitHub. Perhaps GitHub shouldn't be the venue, but I think you have that backwards. Most government entities share unreasonably little of their code.

Yea my bad! I mean that "an unreasonably large amount of their work is publicly available."

Yes, and I'm saying that that is impossible because it's reasonable for all their work to be publicly available and not reasonable for little of their work to be publicly available. Why should the publicly funded work not be made publicly available?

Re: How and why we removed jQuery from Gov.uk

#40

Post by retcore »

labrador wrote: post #37
icedchai wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically speaking, if their phone can't handle 32K of jQuery, it probably can't handle Google or any other search engine they'd be using to find the site in the first place.

My point exactly

Gov.UK is slick af on Jelly bean Chrome 85 sideload with dozens of lengthy pages in active reference. Upgrading unnecessary. In the new economy any clever MVNO could turn L3 rules into subscriber market lead by keeping orphan handsets usable in this way.

Edit: testing daily on 8yo HTC Mini 2.

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