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IllyrioMoParties t1_iu9k078 wrote

>filled with animations and pictures
>still loads faster than reddit
how did they do it

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Asyncrosaurus t1_iua1b1i wrote

>how did they do it

Well text and low-res images are very quick to load. They may or may not even be using a database, meaning the loadtime could be entirely on transmission.

Then look at reddits infrastructure. It's a large system with many active componets being engaged with each pageload, built to scale to millions of active users, not for a single pageload score. For such a simple site ("new" Reddits bloated front-end monstrosity notwithstanding), Reddit is deceptively complex behind the scenes.

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rgthree OP t1_iuagxyn wrote

It’s a custom Python CLI that scrapes movie data and generates a static JSON file with the data. Then another Python file that generates all the static HTML files. Some GIFs, CSS, and JS for interactivity. All static and hosted off an old MacBook behind Cloudflare CDN for fast delivery.

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ditthrowaway999 t1_iubgq14 wrote

Yep, my first thought was noticing how lightning fast this page loaded. I am being 100% truthful when I say I actually, truly, unironically prefer this older "uglier" style of web design over the slick-looking but disgustingly bloated sites of today.

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IllyrioMoParties t1_iuciera wrote

Yes, someone else posted all these technical reasons why normal websites load slow but that's besides the point, isn't it? None of the shit that slows websites down is being requested by users, we just want whatever information we're after

"Check it out guys the website takes forever to load but at least we can better spy on you"

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shackles_of_capital t1_iucm391 wrote

It's nothing to do with tracking - that part's actually very quick.

The sluggishness comes from the use of tons of JS, and huge DOM trees.

The JS is there to make the site interactive. Do you want the entire page to reload whenever you post a comment? No? Then you need some JS to make a post request to the server, add the comment to a database, get back an all ok response, and then retrieve that comment to show it to you. Sites with more interactivity will be slower to load, in general.

But that can be mitigated by making the site an SPA, which means a heavier first load, but the entire rest of the time you spend on the site (on the same browser tab), you won't have to load a full new page whenever you go to another part of the site. The JS will reconfigure the page for you. Has many other benefits as well, like making authoring huge, extremely complicated sites a lot easier, faster, and easier to debug.

Users don't temd to have the first clue what goes into making a website. In 2022 web dev is crazily complex, the requirements are just so much higher than they were 20 years ago.

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IllyrioMoParties t1_iucrg6t wrote

Ironically, loading this page strained my CPU so much I had to restart. I assume you inserted secret browser-killing code into your comment? Well played.

Anyway, my point is that just because it's complicated doesn't mean it's not stupid. You've got a bunch of people telling you they don't care for all the modern fancy shit, they just want websites to load fast and convey information. The response of a professional computer programmer - I'm guessing - shouldn't be, "Silence, peasant, the features you didn't ask for are straining our brains!"

Like, who really cares if you have to refresh a page to see new comments? You still have to do that here (except with your own comments), you still have to do that on 4chan, and these are some of the most popular sites on the internet.

Also, I don't know much about programming but I bet most of the code on any website is trying to unfuck something caused by previous untalented programmers. I'm glad Elon is feeding them all to his tigers

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LudwigTheAccursed_ t1_iueb5dw wrote

Yeah i just want more sites to be like this one. You can keep all the excuses why it can’t because it can. Some sites need to be dynamic of course but many more could be simple like this one.

I wasn’t referring to u making excuses btw-

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turd_boy t1_iud293p wrote

Faster than reddit? It took 5 minutes to load a shitty jpeg of a boob.

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