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Maciej Ceglowski, proprietor of the Pinboard bookmarking site, spoke back on October 29, 2015, at the Web Directions conference in Sydney, Australia about the problem of increasingly bloated web pages. His talk describes the nature of the bloat problem, fake attempts at pretending to fix it, the bloat that advertisements contribute, mishandling of images, unreasonable crufty javascript frameworks, time wasting layouts, sluggish backends, and why it is important to address these issues. The reasons to do so go well beyond just aesthetics and efficiency.
Here's the hortatory part of the talk:
Let’s preserve the web as the hypertext medium it is, the only thing of its kind in the world, and not turn it into another medium for consumption, like we have so many examples of already.
Let’s commit to the idea that as computers get faster, and as networks get faster, the web should also get faster.
Let’s not allow the panicked dinosaurs of online publishing to trample us as they stampede away from the meteor. Instead, let's hide in our holes and watch nature take its beautiful course.
Most importantly, let’s break the back of the online surveillance establishment that threatens not just our livelihood, but our liberty. Not only here in Australia, but in America, Europe, the UK—in every free country where the idea of permanent, total surveillance sounded like bad science fiction even ten years ago.
He closes with an appeal to address these concerns in order to improve general accessibility of the WWW, which correlates with its general awesomeness.
From The Website Obesity Crisis (transcript)
The Website Obesity Crisis (video)
[Ed note: Though some of the admin functions for SoylentNews use Javascript, the user-facing side is entirely Javascript-free; everything is done with straight HTML and CSS. --martyb]
[TMB note: I wish. We never could figure out a way to do collapsible comment trees how we wanted to entirely without Javascript and it's also required for subscriptions paid through Stripe.]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14 2018, @11:32AM (7 children)
While it is true that this site is completely usable without JavaScript, and has very little user-facing JavaScript, it is not true that the user-facing side is entirely JavaScript-free.
Here's an excerpt from the page source of this very page:
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 14 2018, @11:33AM
Yup, updated to reflect that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Touché) by theluggage on Wednesday March 14 2018, @11:54AM (4 children)
...which is all that really matters. Javascript is great for enhancing interactivity and dynamic layout - provided everything "fails safe" to a usable static page. Then, anybody who can't use Javascript - or just has a bug up their arse about it - can just turn it off.
Of course, if the first few iterations of CSS hadn't done such a good job of giving the impression of being designed by someone who had neither visited a website, used a DTP package or even stylesheets in a wordprocessor, then we wouldn't need so much Javascript. At least now we can stop worrying about supporting ancient versions of Internet Explorer. and start to use things like flex layouts and the sensible box model...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday March 14 2018, @12:26PM (2 children)
No more than I have a bug up my arse about picking up random things and putting it in my mouth.
Some sites, like this one, are pretty clean. I'm not really afraid of what you guys put into the script. You do not have a record for distributing malware in ad scripts.
But other sites, well, I find putting scripts from their site into my machine being similar to putting in my mouth something I found on the street. With some sites being more like putting in my mouth things given to me in a public rest room.
Incidentally, I would wish script blockers would not be referred to as "ad" blockers. It never was my intent to block innocent well-mannered ads ( and actually, it doesn't !), but it was my full intent in using it as a hygenic measure to keep malware out of my machine, just as washing hands after using the toilet, or use of a handkerchief as consideration for my neighbors to minimize biological viruses.
Many business sites are like a guy with a cold, deliberately flinging snot, and he wonders why *I* approach him only when wearing a face mask!
Someone told that businessman that part of being in business is being able to set terms and conditions, one of which is tolerating his snot. If he's gonna fling snot, I am going to approach him properly dressed. Which means script blockers if it comes to that.
Just For Laughs gag... what happens to me a lot on my computer ... but this time using kids instead of JavaScript to do the deed. [youtube.com]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by crb3 on Wednesday March 14 2018, @01:51PM
I keep a console window open and maximized when browsing, say, Reddit. If I suspect that the site will dump a ton of garbage into the page, I swipe the URL, switch to that CLI pane and execute "links <mousepasted-url>". I read a Fortune page about 15 minutes ago; try *that* with an ad-blocker.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday March 15 2018, @07:50AM
They aren't. Script blockers like NoScript block scripts. If some of those scripts happen to belong to ads, those scripts are also blocked. And if the ad happens to rely on those scripts to be displayed (as is common these days), then the ad will be displayed.
On the other hand, ad blockers block ads. If the ads happen to contain scripts, then naturally those scripts are also blocked. Scripts that do not belong to ads are not blocked by ad blockers.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Thursday March 15 2018, @07:42AM
No, it is not all that matters. But fortunately this site also does right the other part that matters: The JavaScript is hosted locally to 100%.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday March 14 2018, @05:53PM
Yup, I do like it when I can get sites to work by having NoScript whitelist ONE item (zero is better, but one or two is OK). Not like some of these damned sites that have 20+ blocked scripts.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.