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digg: Javascript overload?

project-2501.net — Just how much data is needed to view the front page of Digg?

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 28, 2006

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  • shreky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is why I think using all those javascripts is a bad idea. Look at digg's frontpage, there is only one effect that uses ajax and that is the "digg" box. Why should the site load 200kb on the front page for that? You can write your own small script to collect a member's id/post id and send via javascript and a small ajax file to handle the background processing and update the digg count. You can then use scriptaculous if needed on the spy pages. Faster homepage/comments page loading... :)
  • shreky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1it is the ajax, they are using scriptaculous or something like that which alone is almost 200kbs in javascript files...bad scripting. If they search the web hard enough, you can find an ajax file that is 3kbs that with some minor changes can do the same. I use it :)
  • vh1`, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I've always thought this was a really inefficient design

    - for each post, there are 3 things that link to the article
    - when you're logged in, articles open in a new window, when logged out they open in the same. please make up your mind
    - the "digg it" link shouldn't link to javascript. it should link to something that actually increments the digg then sends you back to the main page. then you use onclick so if the client supports javascript you can have the fancy ajax stuff in there and have it return false so the link isn't followed
  • shreky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Website using Ajax effectively
    phpnuke themes, phpnuke tutorials, phpnuke modules
    http://www.westernstudios.net
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I was just going to submit a story about this..

    Its really crazy -- it takes almost two minutes for the digg frontpage to load for me on dialup! For some reason, the JS isn't be cached across sessions..


    Josh
  • rekrapt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Too bad there are still people who can't get or can't afford a broadband connection. Yet, even on my 3 megabit DSL connection, it takes longer to load the Digg home page than it takes for me to load Slashdot (which I rarely visit anymore thanks to Digg. :-) ) I'm not an expert coder to be sure, but there must be a way to create a "trimmed down" version of Digg for those still using a dial-up connection.

    Any dial-uppers using so-called "web accellerator" technology? Isn't that some kind of local caching thing?
  • vaserv, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1What about setting up a static site which updates every 5 minutes or so for some users? Also what about some server side compression (if not already there)

    Rus
  • scottevans, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@evanm "Nobody should be on dialup... nobody"

    I guess the people that live out in rural areas where cable, wi-max, or dsl is not available yet don't fall into your category and don't really exist, huh? Tried pricing directpc lately? ($500 minimum start up costs and $100 a month w/ a 12 month contract...with latency out the ass and 500 kbs max d/l speed) According to your post, the only people who REALLY exist are the people who live in metro areas where broadband is available. Think before you post next time.
  • Riptide, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1VH1,

    "- when you're logged in, articles open in a new window, when logged out they open in the same. please make up your mind"

    That is an account setting to make it open in a new window. you can set the setting to whichever you want.
  • dognose, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1HTTP expires tag is wonderful, expire everything in months so people dont' have to reload. reduces server load and bandwidth, and speeds up load time. If you need to make a real change in the item, just change the url.
  • dpk87, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1It's hurting them more than it is us... i.e bandwidth costs.
  • engalicorn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Dialup?

    Whats that?
  • domr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1On the other hand... you can put this into a bit of context when you look at what often happens to a link when it gets to the front page - often, diggers manage to kill other people's sites under the load in a matter of minutes, but digg itself is almost always useable.

    Having said that, I'm sure things could be optimised a little more - the 60 minute cache time is particularly worrying. Only serving particular JS scripts when they're needed would probably help, and even tiny HTML optimisations can make a difference on sites as busy as digg.
  • Rhine23, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Yeah it took me like 5 minutes to load yesterday on dial up but i went over to another house and read it from there my poor dial up cries >.
  • bramkok, on 07/02/2009, -1/+1It would always be nice if digg was faster. When your digging like crazy, speed can be a big benefit.
  • OwlBoy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Yeah Digg is slow as *****.

    -Owl
  • bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0and what the hell does java have to do with anything?

    sure there could be a problem on the server side, but the proof is in the pudding with the page weight.
  • m85476585, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0So that's why Digg pages always flash "waiting for digg.con" and "transfering data from digg.com" for a few seconds while loading. And I have 3mbps (2.4 effective) DSL.
  • thuss, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0That's indeed a very large page but they are in growth mode so I think that's to be expected! At our company I don't let any page out the door larger than 80k all inclusive but in general we shoot for 40k due to bandwidth cost implications of larger pages. Sure, CSS and Javascript are cached but when you look at site usage metrics of many sites you see a large number of users hitting one page and then leaving.

    I'm sure the good folks at Digg will fix this eventually. They are in startup mode right now so they are writing pages that work first and foremast and worrying about optimization later (which is the right approach IMHO). Once they stabilize and their company growth slows they will start looking at spending more carefully. At that point it will be worth the time investment to make the pages smaller to save $20k per year on bandwidth but I'm sure right now it's not the top priority!
  • Metal_Hurlant, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0How long until someone writes a script that scrapes the front page and puts it into a similar-looking page without the crud, then register a domain www.diggg.com, slap a few ads, submit his new site on digg, and wait for frustrated dial-up users to make him rich?

    Or would that be mean?
  • inotocracy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Disable javascript? I'm sure digg has some fallback page if the browser doesn't support JS... doesn't it?!
  • Double-Z, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I don't see what the fuss is about. It loads in under a second for me, under three if my cash is empty. I agree that bloat is bad.

    I'd rather they fixed the problem with the multiple servers synchronization and showing screwy numbers on the front page personally.
  • MattElmore, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Would digg except the linked article is poorly coded.
  • BryanTheCrow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@retro

    Uhh... that's what javascript is... a bunch of librarys we can reference. You don't need to load a huge library to use Ajax technics. My personal "Ajax" (God I hate that term!) library is 8 lines long. You develop towards what you need. If you understand less about it, perhaps you need a bigger library to simplify it for you. If the only way you can figure out how to use dhtml & ajax calls is by writing a few hundred lines of code, that's your own issue.
  • znxster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@pdkrocul - from what i remember Opera is a quicker renderer than Firefox general, so I doubt this to be related to JS
  • retro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Just a thought

    How about the browser companies get with the times and load their own scripts in the application to handle stuff like Ajax, menus, and other common features. Scripts can then just reference these libraries. There would be alot less downloading and alot more web page functionality. Why does every web developer have to create their own Ajax, menu, slider javascript libraries.

  • shinynew, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0it would be nice of them to offer a "smaller" version of the site for Dialup/PDA type divices can use it. like instead of a digg it button whenever you see a story how about only on that story's page. just that would cut down alot of the javascript
  • pdkrocul, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I've noticed pages take a long time to render in Firefox, but are quick in Opera. I wouldn't think that would be related to Javascript. Anyone else have similar expereiences?
  • webhead74, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Google has a nice little tool that will convert any web page to PDA format. I've actually been using this to browse digg on both my Treo 700w & my desktop. It improves load time quite a bit, especially if you use the option to kill images...

    http://www.google.com/gwt/n
  • xpotechi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0digg.
    Cos, top stories often have large comment tree...
  • Odo08, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0My download speed just tested out at 2.36 Mbps and digg loads in a about 2 seconds. I cleared out my cache as well.

    Ebay and nonags.com load slower but by a eyelash.

  • Olle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@yttrx

    I'm sorry, this got uglier than it had to be. But you did say that C is better than Java without qualifying it. Right? Your original post was modded off the page so I can't verify this.

    And I've had one too many statements like that. Either say "you think C is better than Java" or "C is better than Java in these cases". But plainly stating that C is better than Java is wrong.

    I have coded C and C++ for 10+ years but I tend to think that they are rather poor languages for most cases. Reason? It is too easy to shoot yourself in the foot. There are cases where C is good. The Linux kernel is an example where C probably is a good choice.

    Javascript on the other hand is rather sucky. That being said I'm actually coding in Javascript right now. Because, as sucky as it is, it is actually the best choice for the application I have in mind.
  • mpancha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0it used to load within a couple seconds for me. But over the last couple weeks digg usually takes 5-10 seconds. Guess this explains why.
  • ahmerhussain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0the RSS feed for Digg sucks balls...
  • Ace2005, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I think its well designed

    Never seemed slow in opera
  • nedders, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0i think the old design was far better for power-users who like to open up 10 digg articles at a time.
  • bloodyValentine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I like digg just the way it is but they could possibley make a stripped down version for those people still livin the dial up life.
  • bakagaigin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0For everything that digg does, I think it was rather eloquently designed.
  • bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Oh please with your "no diggs." Digg is a tech site, and a user is simply analyzing the tech side of the site itself and offering his opinion on it's accessability.

    With that said, I don't think there is a good reason to have all the .js files loading on first view of the front page. For example, files containing scripts needed to view my profile page, or the Digg spy, probably don't need to be loaded when viewing the front page. I'd assume that the files probably have some bloat to them, or they could at least be organized a bit better.

    I think it's an interesting article and I hope that the Digg tech team takes a look at things.
  • BryanTheCrow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Oh yeah... and if it's really a problem... just subscribe to the rss feed. You get the stories you want without the need hit the full-fledged site.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I miss the old digg design... what ever happened to the minimalist v2.1 that they claimed to be planning when they released v2?
  • c0uchm0nster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0im on dialup (only other option where i live is satellite, and i'm not about to go cut down a bunch of trees and pay 30+/mo for some high latency half-broadband connection)... anyways, opera 8.5, dialup, windows xp and linux, digg loads in well under 46 seconds for me... probably closer to ~30, which isn't much worse than other sites these days
  • jermm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0digg takes less then 3 sec (after cache emptyed) on safari to load (most of that is my slow computer, though (its a mac, after all))
  • evanm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0"Too bad there are still people who can't get or can't afford a broadband connection."

    i'm not believing that. with some dial-ups as high as $23.95, why not switch to yahoo SBC broadband for $14.95/month...

    Nobody should be on dialup... nobody
  • BryanTheCrow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Anyone else find it rather ironic that the guy talkin' ***** about digg's site has a php error on his site leaving it in a rather hard-to-read state?

    "Undefined index: interval in /home/content/B/u/z/Buzzard/html/system/FakeCron.php on line 29".

    We should all keep in mind that once an included .js has been loaded, your browser will cache it & not need to re-load it in future visits... Unless you're a porn-shy cache-clearing-nazi that is. But even if that's the case, it will remain cached for the duration of your browser session. This makes digg's choice to include all .js files on all pages a wise choice as it makes future visits, or multiple page visits load quickly. And let's not forget that all that javascript powers the ajax that lets digg do more without reloading everything every time. Then consider the fact that, as a technology site, most it's visitors will be using broadband to visit it (us nerds like our fast connections!). Taking all this into account, I'd say digg's design is perfect for it's intended audiences. No digg.
  • jtarchie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0you know i am pretty sure everyone here uses firefox to the most part... why not get some of those fancy web deigners/js experts to create a greasemonkey modifier to load digg in the way you want it. i am not complaining because it loads fine for me. but really put your money where your mouth is people.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0i'd like to see it load faster

    also, probably a nooby question, but does 'friends' even work?
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1why dont you all program a site that's as popular as digg. then you can talk.
  • tmav06, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Total of 5.672 seconds to load... whats the problem? How the hell can you complain about that?
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