I was going to have to have multiple pages on the website and thus I wanted to use React to get the performance associated with a single page application.
Is an SPA really necessary for a blog?
SPAs are definitely not always faster than just a traditional server-side solution. Especially given the amount of JavaScript that has to be downloaded and executed (no caching does not stop this cost).
For some perspective your website took a full 3 minutes to load on my laptop.
This isn't intended as a flame; but web performance and accessibility is very important to me so I feel the need to highlight that throwing technologies like react and SPAs around definitely do not give you enough to make a fast and accessible website.
I don't think the load time is a result of the choice of tech stack. Gatsby is a static site generator, which can hydrate to a SPA once loaded. I think it is a great choice for a blog! As you can see it is the intial html page which is the worst offender, not some huge javascript blob.
There are many assets to download, the service workers is pulling down gifs of several megabytes and lots of different JS files. Probably by fixing those huge assets the UX will improve a lot :-)
I mean, the essence of a personal website is a place to play around with since it's...personal.
Then again, you have a good point considering accessibility and performance. The personal website could lead to a rabbit hole of ruthless optimization to make it as good as possible.
Is an SPA really necessary for a blog?
SPAs are definitely not always faster than just a traditional server-side solution. Especially given the amount of JavaScript that has to be downloaded and executed (no caching does not stop this cost).
For some perspective your website took a full 3 minutes to load on my laptop.
This isn't intended as a flame; but web performance and accessibility is very important to me so I feel the need to highlight that throwing technologies like react and SPAs around definitely do not give you enough to make a fast and accessible website.
I don't think the load time is a result of the choice of tech stack. Gatsby is a static site generator, which can hydrate to a SPA once loaded. I think it is a great choice for a blog! As you can see it is the intial html page which is the worst offender, not some huge javascript blob.
I tried robertcooper.me/refreshing-my-pers... and I get similar numbers:
There are many assets to download, the service workers is pulling down gifs of several megabytes and lots of different JS files. Probably by fixing those huge assets the UX will improve a lot :-)
Seeing the same on mobile as well (slow loading speeds) running through my home WiFi. Once loaded though the site looks lovely.
Oh my. I need to look into optimizing those assets! Thanks for pointing this out.
I mean, the essence of a personal website is a place to play around with since it's...personal.
Then again, you have a good point considering accessibility and performance. The personal website could lead to a rabbit hole of ruthless optimization to make it as good as possible.
It's a fair point, one of the joys of a personal website is that you can do whatever you want; and feel free to do so.
The only risk is if your priority is about communicating text based information and you're making it hard for people by making a slow website.