[untog]

File this under "annoying to developers and no-one else".

Twitter obviously caches 99% of this stuff. I absolutely agree that 2.2MB on one page seems absolutely insane, but that doesn't match up with the experience every time you load the page. And I imagine it's pre-caching code that runs on other pages as well, so you most likely only ever take that download hit once.

Yes, they should bring that amount down. No, it probably isn't going to be a priority.

[ChrisLTD]

Shouldn't it be a higher priority? More and more web users are accessing sites from low powered devices with slow connections that might even have data caps (think tablets or netbooks on 3G networks).

Twitter pages don't even seem particularly complex functionally or graphically, so why should the payload be so large?

[untog]

More and more users are on mobile devices, sure. But those load up the mobile version of the Twitter site, which is very lean.

[woobar]

Not when they are clicking on a link in email or other page.

EDIT: misread your comment. Thought you were talking about mobile apps.

Also, I would not call their mobile site 'very lean'. Just got a single twit page on iPhone: 817Kb.

[untog]

Really? Because when I go to a Twitter link on my phone it redirects me to the mobile site, irrespective of the original domain.

[woobar]

I was wrong, see update.

[ChrisLTD]

The mobile version that loads on my iPad is different from the one that loads on my iPhone, and it looks like it uses more javascript. Does anyone know the size of the iPad page?

[anigbrowl]

I'm not a developer, and this is a major reason I never click on links to tweets any more. Particularly when using a smartphone, I find the long load times of many web pages so annoying that I simply avoid visiting such sites altogether.

[huggyface]

File this under "annoying to developers and no-one else".

I never follow Twitter links because of exactly this (well and the fact that they trap you with forwards). It is a terribly negative experience. Even if I had all of those files cached the parsing and execution of all of that JavaScript is far from instantaneous.

Same deal with TechCrunch -- stopped visiting because it is such a script-laden monstrosity that it seriously diminishes the experience.

[untog]

Say- are you a developer?

[JumpCrisscross]

I'm not. And I don't like following those links through. I wasn't aware it was because of caching - I just saw slow.

[godDLL]

"You can't argue with me, because you're on HN"?

[huggyface]

True enough, I am. However sorry I thought you meant that it only annoyed people in a development sense, ala some sort of perfectionism about Firebug call chains or the like.

I have no interest in the specific code behind Twitter, whether in the presentation or behind it, but rather simply note that the general twitter experience is a poor one.