[thelist] JavaScript: How much is too much?

[Sreedhar Chintalapaty]

> ... you should have as much JS as neccessary 
> to robustly accomplish the app's purpose.

Actually, this statement rather proves that the
question is not without merit. :)

In effect, how much JS can browsers take - both in
terms of size and complexity - before it becomes a
losing game or worse, a browser-crash? Has anyone done
this kind of load testing?

To put the question in perspective, here's an example:

There is one school of thought that would limit the
usage of JavaScript to very minimal, 'glue' type
purposes, while doing most of the UI layout on the
server (for instance, generating HTML in JSP pages, or
using a server-side framework such as STRUTS).

However, as a programming language, JS provides the
constructs to do fairly intricate things and in a
fairly limitless fashion; on a philosophical level,
one can make the argument that any and all UI-related
processing should be done on the client (browser, in
this case) if possible. And it is not difficult to
write all the required functionality in JavaScript.

In the end, it is the practical limitations of
browsers, memory on the client machines etc. that sets
the real limits: if the Javascript that 'generates'
the UI is so large that the browser takes forever to
do it, then we are better off doing in on the server
itself. The question is, based on your experience and
estimation, would you use JavaScript for the moderate
weight-lifting described in the last paragraph?  

Sreedhar
 



--- Hassan Schroeder <hassan at webtuitive.com> wrote:
> Sreedhar Chintalapaty wrote:
> 
> > In a typical web application, how much is too much
> > JavaScript - whether as an absolute number, or as
> a
> > percentage of the codebase size? 
> > 
> > I am looking for your opinions based on your
> > experience....
> 
> First, who knows what constitutes a "typical" Web
> application? :-)
> >
> Second, IMO, it's a meaningless question -- you
> should have as much
> JS as neccessary to robustly accomplish the app's
> purpose. Only you
> can evaluate that...
> 
> FWIW!
> -- 
> Hassan Schroeder -----------------------------
> hassan at webtuitive.com
> Webtuitive Design ===  (+1) 408-938-0567   ===
> http://webtuitive.com
> 
>                            dream.  code.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
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