1+++
  2title = "Modern web bloat"
  3date = 2021-04-09
  4[taxonomies]
  5category = ["tech"]
  6tags = ["tips", "vent"]
  7+++
  8
  9This is it. My first blog post; I guess I just became a boomer.
 10
 11Inspiration
 12-----------
 13
 14Some time ago I stumbled upon [this video](https://odysee.com/@Luke:7/a-demonstration-of-modern-web-bloat:f),
 15where the popular Linux influencer [Luke Smith](https://lukesmith.xyz)
 16talked about the effort of looking up a Chicken Parmesan recipe in 2021
 17without having any adblock or privacy extensions enabled.
 18
 19I decided to build this website on [`zola`](https://www.getzola.org/),
 20which is a modern engine for static sites! I was inspired by [lonami](https://lonami.dev/)
 21and I actually forked [his code](https://github.com/LonamiWebs/lonamiwebs.github.io)
 22to make [mine](https://github.com/Bi-Rabittoh/birabittoh.github.io). I
 23think our websites are a good example of how clean and fast a webpage
 24should be.
 25
 26Yeah, this looks like a first world problem and it probably is, but it's
 27not as subtle as you think. I'm actually convinced that the internet
 28*could* actually benefit from this way of thinking, and that's what I'm
 29going to talk about in this first article. 
 30
 31
 32
 33The problem
 34-----------
 35
 36In the early days of the internet, it was common for webpages to be
 37written using only HTML, so we had very ugly but functional websites.
 38
 39As technology went on, sites needed to get more modern-looking and
 40_interactive_; that's why CSS and JavaScript were introduced into the
 41mix, allowing for dynamic websites that could actually change based
 42on user input.
 43
 44As of nowadays, a lot more stuff went into the mix, to the point where
 45the browser is now the most common program we use in our OS: you can, in
 46fact, use it for doing things that 15+ years ago required external
 47programs, like:
 48
 49* playing music and video,
 50* reading PDF files,
 51* doing office work,
 52* checking e-mail,
 53* cloud storage,
 54* etc...
 55
 56I guess people just find it more comfortable if they can do everything
 57with a single program, and they're not to blame for that. This _is_
 58the easiest approach for unexperienced people: just have a program that
 59does everything, instead of having to learn how to use a bunch of
 60different software.
 61
 62This plethora of uses is possible today because of the existence of
 63various libraries and frameworks that simplify JavaScript and CSS and
 64make them easier to develop complicated websites with.
 65This is good for basic web users who just want functional websites, and
 66great for developers since they can easily code complicated code inside
 67the browser, making it the perfect cross-platform wet dream we all have.
 68
 69Sadly, this brings us to the problem: any modern website has become a
 70burden for any browser to load, since our browser needs to download and
 71parse through each library used and often fill the page contents as you
 72scroll through.
 73In his video, Luke Smith found that a simple Chicken Parmesan recipe
 74would take up to 5-10 megabytes, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it
 75actually is.
 76
 77It's easier to understand it if you think about it with video-games;
 78any game on 16-bit[^gaming-storage] consoles and earlier, including
 79full-fledged 30+ hour adventures like _Final Fantasy 6_ and _Chrono
 80Trigger_, weighs less than that one single recipe webpage.
 81
 82
 83The solution
 84--------
 85
 86Well, I don't think this "problem" is getting solved soon, as new
 87frameworks for web development are constantly being introduced. Sadly,
 88it's a one-way train, but if you're a web-dev you could actually make a
 89difference yourself!
 90
 91I mean, this can not apply to all websites. Some of them just _NEED_ to
 92be as responsive and interactive as they are; most of them actually just
 93became bloated at a certain time period (probably mid-2000s) when having
 94a flashy website was cool and different from what everyone else had.
 95
 96Nowadays you can be different than other websites by using plain HTML
 97and CSS for your website: this ensures your pages will load instantly
 98and be compatible even with the oldest of browsers!
 99
100If you like this philosophy, you can check out other projects that aim
101for a simpler and faster web, like these:
102* [based.cooking](https://based.cooking/), a modern recipe website based
103 on collaboration via GitHub;
104* [wiby.me](https://wiby.me/), a search engine that aims to only index
105classic style webpages.
106
107Footnotes
108--------
109
110[^gaming-storage]: As stated in [this article](https://blogs.umass.edu/Techbytes/2014/02/10/history-of-gaming-storage/#attachment_2827).
111
112
113