Re: Dojo downloads, why not split in dojo/dijit/dojox
Micheil Smith <micheil <at> brandedcode.com>
2009-09-02 02:20:23 GMT
David J Mark wrote:
> Micheil Smith wrote:
>
>> Adam Peller wrote:
>>
>>> Can't we just include a layer with each distribution? Fine-tuning
>>> with the build tools is generally a good idea, but at least this would
>>> give a good default. Users who get hundreds of individual xhrs by
>>> default get a very bad impression of Dojo.
>>>
>> Something that could be done to about the amount of XHRs we make, is to
>> inform
>>
>
> We don't have to make XHR's at all.
>> the user that no, we're not actually requiring heaps of downloads /
>> bandwidth, but
>> actually to make sure that they know that dojo is broken up into many
>> smaller files
>> for better code management whilst developing.
>>
>
> We are distributing something in hundreds of pieces and then asking the
> user to wait while it assembles itself on each load. And I don't see
> this leading to better code management for the user (it is handy for us
> behind the scenes, of course). There are two ways to improve and they
> are not mutually exclusive: an online builder that delivers a single
> file or a much faster ad-hoc loading process (which has been developed).
>
>
Actually, we do, if we are to stick to using Dojo.require, the reason is
because XHR
calls are generally synchronous, while, yes, we could use script tag
insertion, which
partially works, you'd need to then store a queue of files to load, and
even then, it'd
make the require method asynchronous. We want the calls to be blocking
so that we
don't get code errors when loading in file dependencies.
While you could compile all the code into a single script file, it'd be
a rather beefy file
to load initially, and then it'd probably be too weighty to have loading
on every one of
your pages if different pages use different components.
>> As for a build tool, it'd be a great idea to see someone write a
>> modified version of
>> shrinksafe / buildutils that actually builds a copy of dojo.js and
>> compiles together
>> the individual require()'d files, so that if you're using say..
>> dojox.grid, you'd have a
>> resulting file: dojox.grid.min.js and then just tell the require()
>> method that this is
>> were all the code to dojox.grid.* is, so it only requires one file. This
>> could be done
>> with the help of some sort of file index (read maybe manifest), which
>> could be
>> placed into the top of dojo.js
>>
>
> ISTM you are describing the current builder, but I could be missing
> something. And I don't see the need for extraneous meta data. The
> builder shouldn't need any (and doesn't AFAIK).
I'm not that familiar with build-tools to be honest, so, if it already
does that, then great! Let's promote it.
- Micheil
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