Alex Kirk

  • Bloated Ajax Applications Due to Libraries

    When Ajax began to rise, there was quite a movement towards the prototype javascript library. This was also pushed by the great Ruby on Rails. Then came the visual effects of script.aculo.us. They look great, they really do. But for what price? Lots of KB of code.

    alex@www:~/scriptaculous/$ du *.js -ch --apparent-size
    23K controls.js
    18K dragdrop.js
    21K effects.js
    28K prototype.js
    899 scriptaculous.js
    12K unittest.js
    8.7K util.js
    109K total

    This is unacceptable for just a library. Most of these KB’s have to be downloaded and do not provide any functionality per-se. Broadband is not an argument here. To load or not to load 100kb is relevant.

    I therefor really like the Sack of Ajax. It takes only about 4K:

    alex@www:~/sack/$ du *.js -ch --apparent-size
    3.9K tw-sack.js
    3.9K total

    Now this does not give us all the script.aculo.us stuff. For that case I suggest to just reuse the relevant parts of it. Just let the user download what you really use. Maybe one day we will see a reduced script.aculo.us. Or an alternative using Sack.

    UPDATE: I now recommend to use protoype.js again, in a reduced version just for AJAX.

    ajax, sack of ajax, prototype, bloated

  • News about E-Ink

    E Ink: Entwickler-Kit mit elektronischem Papier – Golem.de
    (the corresponding PR announcement)

    go on, go on, go on. that’s what i want. i don’t like reading on the screen very much. i waste tons of paper just for printing internet pages and reading them, e.g. while travelling around through vienna by tram.

    unfortunately the e-book device development seems to have stopped in 2002. i hope that this will push forward new products, although i believe there wouldn’t be an affordable one within 2 years. in the u.s. give europe another year. :o/

    an additional note to the hardware developers: don’t even think about a two-display/double-page e-book device. that’s what i always hated about books. when reading while lying the next page is always uncomfortable to read.

    still one more: don’t mess around with supporting a lot of document formats. just pdf will do (flexible os’es let you save any printed document as pdf).

    ahh. one more: underlining words on such a device would be too much comfort for the beginning. needing a touchable display it would be too much work. postpone it. please.

    now for the last point: use e-ink. it only needs energy for displaying new pages. this will make the battery as long lasting as i want it to be.

    e-ink, e-book, pdf