Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Theodores 6 days ago
As a human SVG-maxxer, I doubt there is the training data out there for true SVG maxxing.

SVG has its neat SVGO tool that optimises SVG code, this is very clever but it won't spot easy wins such as when a group of elements can be mirrored, or an element re-used with a transform. Neither will it use the full smorgasbord of features. SVGO is not AI, however, it does a fab job of taking bloated files from Adobe Illustrator and getting something good to work with.

The bar for SVG is really low, mostly just paths, compressed and not human readable. SVG should be a human readable format, so 'circle radius 10' rather than two hundred points at six decimal places to draw the same circle.

You have to RTFM to do cool things with SVG and there is a lack of appreciation of the format amongst developers and designers.