Don't bother saving white-space

**Neal** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 20:49:58 +0200, Stephen Poley
<sbpoleySpicedH amTrap@xs4all.n l> wrote:
[color=blue]
> People in these groups, and on web-pages, not infrequently suggest that
> it is worthwhile cutting down on white-space and comments in HTML and
> CSS in order to reduce loading times. I and others have more than once
> doubted this, given the data-compression in the HTTP protocol. Having
> seen it suggested again a couple of times in the last few days, I
> decided it was time for a test on the effect of white-space.
>
> I took one of my pages:
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/checklist.html
> which is 20 Kb.
>
> I then bloated it with whitespace to 162 Kb (nothing special about that
> number - it's just what it happened to end up as):
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/misc/checklist.html
>
> I tested them over my 46 Kbps modem connection (yes: 46, not 56; don't
> ask - I don't know either) using Opera 7.
>
> The first page loads in 3 seconds, the second in 8 seconds - both
> figures seem to be repeatable.[/color]

For me, original=3secs, bloated=21 secs.

The extra white space amounts to 142 Kb. Took me 18 extra seconds to load.
About 8Kb per sec, or close to the same for the original file. This would
seem to indicate there is value in reducing white space.

**Stephen Poley** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:00:09 -0400, Neal <neal413@yahoo. com> wrote:
[color=blue]
>On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 20:49:58 +0200, Stephen Poley
><sbpoleySpiced HamTrap@xs4all. nl> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> The first page loads in 3 seconds, the second in 8 seconds - both
>> figures seem to be repeatable.[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
>For me, original=3secs, bloated=21 secs.
>
>The extra white space amounts to 142 Kb. Took me 18 extra seconds to load.
>About 8Kb per sec, or close to the same for the original file. This would
>seem to indicate there is value in reducing white space.[/color]

That's interesting. I wonder what causes the difference? What browser
are you using? Are you using a 56Kb modem? - if so, it indicates that it
must be doing some compression, or the 'bloated' transmission would take
around 30 seconds.

--
Stephen Poley

Web Matters - Main Page

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

**Els** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

Stephen Poley wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:00:09 -0400, Neal
> <neal413@yahoo. com> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 20:49:58 +0200, Stephen Poley
>><sbpoleySpice dHamTrap@xs4all .nl> wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> The first page loads in 3 seconds, the second in 8
>>> seconds - both figures seem to be repeatable.[/color][/color]
>[color=green]
>>For me, original=3secs, bloated=21 secs.
>>
>>The extra white space amounts to 142 Kb. Took me 18 extra
>>seconds to load. About 8Kb per sec, or close to the same
>>for the original file. This would seem to indicate there is
>>value in reducing white space.[/color]
>
> That's interesting. I wonder what causes the difference?
> What browser are you using? Are you using a 56Kb modem? -
> if so, it indicates that it must be doing some compression,
> or the 'bloated' transmission would take around 30 seconds.[/color]

I'm on broadband, the first is done within a second, the second
one takes 2/3 secs.

I suppose that could add up if you're working with 'flip-
through' pages, even for broadband.

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -
Now playing: Magnum - No Way Out

**Neal** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 21:39:41 +0200, Stephen Poley
<sbpoleySpicedH amTrap@xs4all.n l> wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:00:09 -0400, Neal <neal413@yahoo. com> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 20:49:58 +0200, Stephen Poley
>> <sbpoleySpicedH amTrap@xs4all.n l> wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> The first page loads in 3 seconds, the second in 8 seconds - both
>>> figures seem to be repeatable.[/color][/color]
>[color=green]
>> For me, original=3secs, bloated=21 secs.
>>
>> The extra white space amounts to 142 Kb. Took me 18 extra seconds to
>> load.
>> About 8Kb per sec, or close to the same for the original file. This
>> would
>> seem to indicate there is value in reducing white space.[/color]
>
> That's interesting. I wonder what causes the difference? What browser
> are you using? Are you using a 56Kb modem? - if so, it indicates that it
> must be doing some compression, or the 'bloated' transmission would take
> around 30 seconds.
>[/color]

Opera 7.23 on dialup 56k, 45333 bps.

**Alan J. Flavell** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004, Stephen Poley wrote:
[color=blue]
> I took one of my pages:
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/checklist.html
> which is 20 Kb.
>
> I then bloated it with whitespace to 162 Kb (nothing special about that
> number - it's just what it happened to end up as):
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/misc/checklist.html[/color]

It may be of interest that when gzipped, your file sizes came out as
7711 and 8805 respectively. So as we've been saying all along (well,
since NCSA X Mosaic had been supporting gzipped HTML about a decade
back, courtesy of jwz), there's far more to be gained by serving out
HTML gzipped than by fussing about a bit of white space.

thanks for the heads-up, though - no offence meant! ;-)

**Andrew Graham** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

Stephen Poley wrote:[color=blue]
> last few days, I decided it was time for a test on the effect of
> white-space.
>
> I took one of my pages:
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/checklist.html
> which is 20 Kb.
>
> I then bloated it with whitespace to 162 Kb (nothing special about
> that number - it's just what it happened to end up as):
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/misc/checklist.html
>
> I tested them over my 46 Kbps modem connection (yes: 46, not 56; don't
> ask - I don't know either) using Opera 7.
>
> The first page loads in 3 seconds, the second in 8 seconds - both
> figures seem to be repeatable. This suggests that if you took a file[/color]

Here are two more data points for you, both over 24kbps modem from USA
west coast:

1) Firefox:
9 seconds vs. 13 seconds

2) wget:
D:\test>timethi s wget -q
http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/checklist.html | grep "Elapsed"
TimeThis : Elapsed Time : 00:00:05.107

D:\test>timethi s wget -q
http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/misc/checklist.html | grep "Elapsed"
TimeThis : Elapsed Time : 00:00:15.322

Living in an area without high-speed connections, I appreciate more than
most the value of fast websites, but I still indent and wrap my html.
Using your page as an example, it is 19135 bytes without any newlines or
duplicate spaces, and 20803 bytes indented and wrapped at column 72.
Tiny difference.
[color=blue]
> Somehow it just doesn't seem worth it ...[/color]

Yup. Optimize those jpegs instead.

**Arne** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

Stephen Poley wrote:[color=blue]
> People in these groups, and on web-pages, not infrequently suggest that
> it is worthwhile cutting down on white-space and comments in HTML and
> CSS in order to reduce loading times. I and others have more than once
> doubted this, given the data-compression in the HTTP protocol. Having
> seen it suggested again a couple of times in the last few days, I
> decided it was time for a test on the effect of white-space.
>
> I took one of my pages:
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/checklist.html
> which is 20 Kb.
>
> I then bloated it with whitespace to 162 Kb (nothing special about that
> number - it's just what it happened to end up as):
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/misc/checklist.html
>
> I tested them over my 46 Kbps modem connection (yes: 46, not 56; don't
> ask - I don't know either) using Opera 7.
>
> The first page loads in 3 seconds, the second in 8 seconds - both
> figures seem to be repeatable. This suggests that if you took a file
> with a fairly generous 5Kb of white-space, and stripped out all of it,
> loading would be speeded up by a princely one-sixth of a second. (For
> comparison, the largest HTML file on my site, of 79Kb, turned out to
> have just under 3Kb of compressible white-space.)
>
> Somehow it just doesn't seem worth it ...
>[/color]

My opinion is that the total size (i.e. images included) is to be
considered.

According to http://www.websiteoptimization.com/ a analysis on your page
/webmatters/checklist.html gives this result

Total Size: 43638 bytes
HTML: 19685
Images: 18539
CSS: 5414
Total Images: 4
Download Times*
56K 8.90 seconds

Same analysis on the page misc/checklist.html

Total Size: 189818 bytes
HTML: 165865
Images: 18539
CSS: 5414
Total Images: 4
Download Times*
56K 38.03 seconds

So, if (at it looks) you don't change anything else than adding
whitespace to the code, the download time change with aprox 29 sec for a
56K dial up connection!

--
Arne

**Nick Kew** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

In article <opscztqjsm6v66 56@news.individ ual.net>,
Neal <neal413@yahoo. com> writes:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> People in these groups, and on web-pages, not infrequently suggest that
>> it is worthwhile cutting down on white-space and comments in HTML and
>> CSS in order to reduce loading times. I and others have more than once
>> doubted this, given the data-compression in the HTTP protocol. Having[/color][/color]

Compression is optional in HTTP, and only works if you've enabled it
on the server (eg with mod_deflate).
[color=blue][color=green]
>> http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/checklist.html
>> which is 20 Kb.[/color][/color]

HTTP compression is not enabled on that URL.
[color=blue][color=green]
>> I then bloated it with whitespace to 162 Kb (nothing special about that
>> number - it's just what it happened to end up as):
>> http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/misc/checklist.html[/color][/color]

Nor there.
[color=blue][color=green]
>> I tested them over my 46 Kbps modem connection (yes: 46, not 56; don't
>> ask - I don't know either) using Opera 7.[/color][/color]

I expect you have PPP compression enabled in your modem.
[color=blue][color=green]
>> The first page loads in 3 seconds, the second in 8 seconds - both
>> figures seem to be repeatable.[/color][/color]

That's a significant difference. If you had HTTP compression enabled there
should be negligible difference (because that extra 162K would be wiped out).
[color=blue]
> For me, original=3secs, bloated=21 secs.[/color]

Either you have no PPP compression (very bad), or you have a bottleneck
elsewhere in your connection.
[color=blue]
> About 8Kb per sec, or close to the same for the original file. This would
> seem to indicate there is value in reducing white space.[/color]

Indeed, in some circumstances there is. But there is much more value
in mod_deflate. And if you use that, the value in reducing whitespace
vanishes. That applies to any repetitive patterns - such as HTML tags -
but not to comments (mentioned in passing in the OP).

--
Nick Kew

Nick's manifesto: http://www.htmlhelp.com/~nick/

**Andrew Thompson** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004, Stephen Poley wrote:[color=blue]
>On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 20:41:12 +0100, Alan J. Flavell wrote:[/color]
[color=blue][color=green]
>> http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/misc/checklist.html[/color]
>
> It may be of interest that when gzipped, your file sizes came out as
> 7711 and 8805 respectively.[/color]

I have just been playing with various arcane
aspects of Zip compression over on c.l.j.p., so
I was particularly interested to see if you had ..

a) 'blobbed' the white-space in a large chunk, as opposed to
b) giving an extra space or two between each word,

...for example.

The reason is that most compression algorithms
will compress the 'large space' better than many
small spaces.

And.. yes, I noticed you made that mistake,
large chunks of whitespace that are easily
compressible, with a fairly clear pattern.

I would be convinced only if you started from
the outset with a more realistic (chaotic)
example.

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology

**Frostillicus** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

I've switched to indenting my HTML out with tabs instead of spaces. It took
some getting used to as I didn't like how far they appeared to be indented
(I'm still a notepad junkie) but I got used to it and file sizes are much
smaller now (and my thumbs aren't as sore any more as I don't have to keep
hitting the space bar that much).

**Jukka K. Korpela** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

"Frostillic us" <frosty@nilspam os.iinet.net.au > wrote:
[color=blue]
> I've switched to indenting my HTML out with tabs instead of spaces.[/color]

You are trolling, are you not? As usual, crossposting to two groups
without setting followups is a probable sign of spamming, trolling, or
cluelessness, and a forged From field supports this impression.
So does lack of any reference to preceding discussion (such as quotation
or summary of the message being commented on).

In HTML, a tab is equivalent to a space, except in special occasions. But
almost any use of tabs in HTML is a symptom of some misunderstandin g.

Followups trimmed. Indentation of HTML source is surely not a CSS
business.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

**Frostillicus** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

I'm not trolling and I do definitely use tabs to space out HTML as well as
CSS selectors (sorry, I should have made mention of styles since this is a
stylesheet newsgroup).

And as for cross-posting, I think you'll find the original post from Stephen
Poley was posted to more than one group, and OE must have included them all
when I clicked "reply group". I'm not losing any sleep over it...

As for the "nilspamos" in my email address, my ISP does it for me, and I've
got no problem with that. I take it you don't mind your email address being
harvested and used for the sole purpose of flooding your inbox? Enjoy your
spam!

**Jukka K. Korpela** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

"Frostillic us" <frosty@nilspam os.iinet.net.au > wrote:
[color=blue]
> I'm not trolling[/color]

You just confirmed it by many things, including the sending of your
message to the wrong group, contrary to Followup-To settings.

Please do not stop using your current forged address until you wish to
participate in constructive discussions.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

**Stephen Poley** · Jul 20 '05, 11:31 PM

Re: Don't bother saving white-space

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 23:26:02 +0000 (UTC), "Jukka K. Korpela"
<jkorpela@cs.tu t.fi> wrote:
[color=blue]
>"Frostillicu s" <frosty@nilspam os.iinet.net.au > wrote:
>[color=green]
>> I've switched to indenting my HTML out with tabs instead of spaces.[/color]
>
>You are trolling, are you not? As usual, crossposting to two groups
>without setting followups is a probable sign of spamming, trolling, or
>cluelessness , and a forged From field supports this impression.
>So does lack of any reference to preceding discussion (such as quotation
>or summary of the message being commented on).
>
>In HTML, a tab is equivalent to a space, except in special occasions. But
>almost any use of tabs in HTML is a symptom of some misunderstandin g.
>
>Followups trimmed. Indentation of HTML source is surely not a CSS
>business.[/color]

Having a bad night, Jukka? The subject matter of the thread not only can
be, but has been, raised in respect of both HTML and CSS and it appears
to be relevant to both groups.

Further, given that tab is explicitly defined as a whitespace character
in HTML, your comment on that deserves a little further explanation.

(I'll grant you the comment on the lack of any quoted material.)

--
Stephen Poley

Web Matters - Main Page

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

Don't bother saving white-space

Don't bother saving white-space

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