google to host JS Libraries... (jquery .. dojo...)

forbairt

just read this ... http://googleajaxsearchapi.blogspot.com/2008/05/speed-up-access-to-your-favorite.html

Should be pretty cool ... wonder how much of an impact it'll really have on sites loading though

still looks a lot simpler to handle updates on your sites JS libraries

colm_c

Don't think I'd be all that comfortable having someone else host the library/script I'm using.

I know some functions changed in jQuery, and the last time I upgraded the script on one of our client's website it broke and I had to update some of our functions built on top of the library.

There's also performance, even for Google Analytics it slows up the page unless you have it at the bottom of the page, even then sometimes you get 'waiting for www.google-analytics.com' message in the status bar of the browser.

forbairt

as far as I know (from what I read) google will have an API to access the libraries which will allow you to choose the version ?

I've not monitored google analytics that much I do know it can take a while to load though ..

I think the general idea behind this is that you won't have to keep on refreshing libraries across sites ... given that more and more people use an unhacked version of the jquery or whatever library .. I think it should be quite cool ... will I use it right away ... probably not ...

CuLT

I read up on it, you can specify versioning painlessly, even if it's just a script include it'd be like [noparse]http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.min.js[/noparse].

Personally, on a site as large as boards.ie I'd be concerned about sporadic delays similar to google-analytics. For GA it's not a big deal, just means you get the page loading status appearing for longer, but without any inhibition of functionality. The same delay with something that forms an integral part of ones site would be simply unacceptable.

Goodshape

CuLT wrote: »

The same delay with something that forms an integral part of ones site would be simply unacceptable.

A hugely valid concern but (I'm open to correction here..) is it fair to compare Analyitcs to a JS library call?

Analyics data is sent and received per-page, per-site. Whereas if the user loads one jQuery library into cache he need not ever do that again.

So the loading would be instantaneous for all but one out of the hundred sites the user visits which calls the Google hosted jQuery library.

forbairt

Had meant to post something similar ...

Ajax queries are taking place sending info back to google I presume if something goes wrong for one reason or another it'd hang ... or take a bit of time ..

CuLT

Goodshape wrote: »

A hugely valid concern but (I'm open to correction here..) is it fair to compare Analyitcs to a JS library call?

Analyics data is sent and received per-page, per-site. Whereas if the user loads one jQuery library into cache he need not ever do that again.

So the loading would be instantaneous for all but one out of the hundred sites the user visits which calls the Google hosted jQuery library.

I imagine that the client still has to check whether or not the cache has changed on load, even if it's just transferring a byte or two of the "changed/not changed" flag, it would still have to check (I am open to correction on this too though).

cgarvey

Static files like these libraries would usually have an Expires header some hours/days/weeks in to the future, so the browser knows whether to bother to check for "if modified since".

Anyway, I want to be in control of the speed of the loading of my site, and I don't want to just hand over all my traffic data (Analytics style) to Google. Those 2 reasons are enough for me to not use this anyway.

democrates

cgarvey wrote: »

Anyway, I want to be in control of the speed of the loading of my site, and I don't want to just hand over all my traffic data (Analytics style) to Google. Those 2 reasons are enough for me to not use this anyway.

Amen to that, there's no way I'd subject visitors to any site of mine to having their online behaviour tracked by Google, or anyone else for that matter.

The privacy statement for any site using this would have to mention that Google can track the user, and explaining what they may or may not do with the data is a thorny one I think I can live without.

I'm now going to look into how to set up Firefox not to request anything from Google or other activity loggers when visiting unrelated sites, hazy memory of a setting...