How and why we removed jQuery from Gov.uk(insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk) |
How and why we removed jQuery from Gov.uk(insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk) |
For a government entity, an unreasonably large amount of their work is on GitHub. Examples:
Front end design system: https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-frontend
Project board: https://github.com/orgs/alphagov/projects/4
Requests for comment: https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-rfcs
Gov.uk infrastructure as code (WIP): https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-infrastructure
“The GDS way”: How they work, tech stack, processes, etc https://github.com/alphagov/gds-way
“Terraform modules for on-boarding with Cyber Security services eg define the IAM SecurityAudit role”: https://github.com/alphagov/cyber-security-shared-terraform-...
Full GitHub org with >1,500 repos: https://github.com/alphagov
[1] https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology/making-source-c...
Perhaps GitHub shouldn't be the venue, but I think you have that backwards. Most government entities share unreasonably little of their code.
(why not just use CC-by? Because someone had legal questions about some of the fine details. But the practical effects are as if they just did.)
in fact, its use is directly recommended where reasonable and feasible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Government_Licence
Terence Eden has a really good blog post about just this topic: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiven...
jQuery is probably the least of their problems. And ironically, the blog with the jquery article on it loads jquery! I realize it's not part of the same site.
"jQuery is probably the least of their problems" : they also explicitly said that removing it was a low-priority background task, yet I like that mindset where they care about people having low-bandwidth or low-end devices "removing jQuery means that 32Kb of JavaScript has been removed from the majority of pages on GOV.UK. GOV.UK is already quite fast to load and for many users this will make no noticeable difference. However, the change for users on a low bandwidth connection or lower specification device will be much more noticeable, resulting in significantly improved page download speed and performance"
Keep it up!
My suspicion is that the US actually has national natural history and science collections/museums that are on par with the UK these days, but we lack something like the BBC to "market" them for lack of a better word.
Seems like a well managed project.
(Yes, yes, this could be a very glossed over account that ignores frictions and factions along the way, but I quite enjoy taking it at face value.)
1. Didn't read the article (they dropped 13% of the entire page weight). The websites are already well below of "today’s average"
2. Don't understand the impact of having a page that loads instantly at the government level. These websites are not for fun, they must work well for everyone.
> the change for users on a low bandwidth connection or lower specification device will be much more noticeable, resulting in significantly improved page download speed and performance.
All in all, this sounds like fantastic work relative to what we normally expect from government end user software. We should encourage this kind of thing, not jump to the hand-wavy "my tax dollars!" complaint, which approaches meaninglessness in its commonality.
> We’ll provide more detail about exactly what that means in the next blog post.
The whole premise of the article is conjecture until we see the performance numbers presented. The claim is that removing a one-time load 32kB library is useful to page load times and user experience for low end users. It has ZERO specifications or performance numbers cited.
Besides which, the net effect of more data on a page is that it takes a little longer to load the page. For someone who has a slow phone, they are conditioned to this through use of other sites (or even clicking on the housing link at the top of the UK Gov site and waiting for a 360kB image to load). What is the advantage of speeding it up for them for a single site they may or may not use?
Will we also take it upon ourselves to justify anything that makes them click on the wrong link and have to wait to go back? Unlikely.
(Also, luckily the UK government spent zero dollars on fixing this.)
BTW, the UK doesn't use dollars.
I don't think you would generally expect people to say "tax euros" or "tax pounds" or "tax yen"
gov.uk is an absolute delight to use exactly because of this kind of focus on the details and valuing of simplicity. I can’t think of another website that is more useable, and that is super important for a site that needs to work for a very diverse user base who have no choice but to use it.
I think you’d also be surprised how little this is likely to have cost compared to benefit to the tens of millions of users of these systems. GDS run a tight ship.
But it is surprising to see!
Depends which country you're in. It would be very weird for UK politicians to start talking about tax dollars, for example.
> the fix was spending a lot of tax dollars to replace it?
Reads fine as
> the fix was spending a lot of taxes to replace it?
Edit: testing daily on 8yo HTC Mini 2.