Package List on Web Site

Package List on Web Site

[John Darrington]

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I don't know who or what looks after the web site for Guix, but now that Guix
is growing there are starting to be some scalability issues.

In particular, I have noticed that http://gnu.org/s/guix/package-list.html is now
over 1.5 MB in size and is startign to take an unacceptably long time to load (at
least for me).

Perhaps this would be better split into one page per package, with a seperate index page?

J'

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Re: Package List on Web Site

[Ludovic Courtès]

John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au> skribis:

> In particular, I have noticed that http://gnu.org/s/guix/package-list.html is now
> over 1.5 MB in size and is startign to take an unacceptably long time to load (at
> least for me).

I think it’s rendering that takes time, not transfer per se (unless you
have a very slow connection.)

I would like it to use David’s guix-web JS code to add the search box
and multiple-page split.  I suspect this would address the rendering
time and usability issues.  But of course, that would need help from
someone knowledgeable...  :-)

It would be ideal if this were done in a “progressive enhancement”
fashion, such that it can still be viewed in emacs-w3m.

Thoughts?

Ludo’.

Re: Package List on Web Site

[David Thompson]

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au> skribis:
>
>> In particular, I have noticed that http://gnu.org/s/guix/package-list.html is now
>> over 1.5 MB in size and is startign to take an unacceptably long time to load (at
>> least for me).
>
> I think it’s rendering that takes time, not transfer per se (unless you
> have a very slow connection.)
>
> I would like it to use David’s guix-web JS code to add the search box
> and multiple-page split.  I suspect this would address the rendering
> time and usability issues.  But of course, that would need help from
> someone knowledgeable...  :-)

We could make a specialized application that did this, since guix-web
will soon enough be concerned with authentication and other things that
aren't needed here.  To do things the way guix-web does, it would
require a Guile server component for the JSON API.

> It would be ideal if this were done in a “progressive enhancement”
> fashion, such that it can still be viewed in emacs-w3m.

Yes, agreed.  This would be the hardest part, because guix-web is
designed as a "single-page application", using JavaScript for all
rendering.  I would be inclined to write this package list browser in
the same fashion, because it results in much more elegant code than the
jQuery soup we would otherwise be in.

What should the non-JS fallback viewer look like?  Should we just
display the full list as we do now?

-- 
David Thompson
Web Developer - Free Software Foundation - http://fsf.org
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Re: Package List on Web Site

[John Darrington]

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On Sun, Feb 08, 2015 at 03:42:08PM +0100, Ludovic Court??s wrote:
     John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au> skribis:
     
     > In particular, I have noticed that http://gnu.org/s/guix/package-list.html is now
     > over 1.5 MB in size and is startign to take an unacceptably long time to load (at
     > least for me).
     
     I think it???s rendering that takes time, not transfer per se (unless you
     have a very slow connection.)

You may well be right.  But I think that 1.5MB is *way*  too large for a single web page.
I'm relatively well connected but there are people in the world who still use 56kps internet
connections.

     I would like it to use David???s guix-web JS code to add the search box
     and multiple-page split.  I suspect this would address the rendering
     time and usability issues.  But of course, that would need help from
     someone knowledgeable...  :-)

Artanis is another possible tool that might help, but I don't know much about it either.
     
     It would be ideal if this were done in a ???progressive enhancement???
     fashion, such that it can still be viewed in emacs-w3m.


It certainly should be viewable with w3m, and with links, yes.

J'

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Re: Package List on Web Site

[Ludovic Courtès]

David Thompson <dthompson2@worcester.edu> skribis:

> Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au> skribis:
>>
>>> In particular, I have noticed that http://gnu.org/s/guix/package-list.html is now
>>> over 1.5 MB in size and is startign to take an unacceptably long time to load (at
>>> least for me).
>>
>> I think it’s rendering that takes time, not transfer per se (unless you
>> have a very slow connection.)
>>
>> I would like it to use David’s guix-web JS code to add the search box
>> and multiple-page split.  I suspect this would address the rendering
>> time and usability issues.  But of course, that would need help from
>> someone knowledgeable...  :-)
>
> We could make a specialized application that did this, since guix-web
> will soon enough be concerned with authentication and other things that
> aren't needed here.  To do things the way guix-web does, it would
> require a Guile server component for the JSON API.

I was thinking of something simpler: statically generate
package-list.html (as we currently do, with list-packages.scm), but
instead of spitting out the HTML table directly, produce the JSON data
that guix-web’s browser-side code expects.

>> It would be ideal if this were done in a “progressive enhancement”
>> fashion, such that it can still be viewed in emacs-w3m.
>
> Yes, agreed.  This would be the hardest part, because guix-web is
> designed as a "single-page application", using JavaScript for all
> rendering.  I would be inclined to write this package list browser in
> the same fashion, because it results in much more elegant code than the
> jQuery soup we would otherwise be in.
>
> What should the non-JS fallback viewer look like?  Should we just
> display the full list as we do now?

I think so.

Ludo’.