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0 pointsdmw_ng4y ago0 comments

The main trick behind AMP is simply the ability to load third party content in a hidden IFRAME on the google.com origin securely. Your clicks were instant because they were literally pre-rendered client-side before you clicked, and that's why custom JS is prohibited.

SXG and WebBundle basically help map that trick out into the browser's domain, rather than some nasty restrictive JS library. It allows eliminating the whole megabyte-sized supersystem of JS nonsense that makes up the AMP library and having just plain ol' regular HTML/JS, while still netting most of the performance benefits of the old approach.

Mobile networks may have improved but the speed of light has not, and so these techniques still have a place in contemporary networking.

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kllrnohj4y ago

No it wasn't. The main trick of AMP was getting things like news sites to cut out dozens of JS libraries. The main trick was to get page load speed onto PM radars as a priority, so they got that little lightning bolt icon. You can make a regular page as fast as an amp one, absolutely. But the trick of AMP was getting major sites to actually do it.

Preferching/prerendering existed long, long before AMP did. That wasn't a new AMP technology, although it does communicate that there's going to be less to preferch than other links.

GekkePrutser4y ago

> Your clicks were instant because they were literally pre-rendered client-side before you clicked, and that's why custom JS is prohibited.

All the wasted rendering for all the amp links not clicked sounds like a really great way to churn through mobile battery life unnecessarily. Glad I don't use Google.

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