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0 pointslxgr2mo ago0 comments

I think this might be closer to the truth than you might think.

Due to the absence of (cross-app) shared libraries on at least iOS, developers often end up building big company-internal libraries that then have to be shipped with all of their apps.

Tree shaking isn’t perfect, and the result are these > 0.5 GB monstrosities.

0 comments

themafia2mo ago

> Tree shaking

Modern development is insane to me. "Let's do it badly, and hope a tool can fix it for us."

"Is anyone keeping an eye on the tools? No? Perfect!"

Particularly for developers inside the company that owns the platform. At some point they have to recognize they've completely screwed all this up.

seizethecheese2mo ago

Is it plausible that the libraries are so big? I mean, for example, NodeJS is in the order of 100mb and contains the whole v8 engine.

The Gmail app size has to be assets, right?

reactordev2mo ago

Static linking will do that. Imagine you have 400mb of binary objects your app depends on. Libraries your company uses for app analytics, SSO, 2FA, Corporate service bus api, etc. You statically link all those for your 50mb Swift UI app and bam, you’re in the 700mb range.

chasil2mo ago

The use of Go will definitely do that, as it prefers to statically link everything.

https://go.dev/wiki/Mobile

If we had an entire POSIX OS built with Go, then we would be back to statically-linked UNIX prior to BSD.

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/golang-statically-and-dyna...

1 more reply

tormeh2mo ago

That's a lot of code, though. I can't imagine common libraries so big. The Linux kernel is less than 100mb.

2 more replies

tgsovlerkhgsel2mo ago

You'd be surprised what ends up dragged into where when you have a build system that makes it easy. Just look at the npm.js mess (and what kind of things ended up depending on what kind of other thing) if you want an example.

stonemetal122mo ago

On Android, Gmail reports as being under 200 MB. So I agree, they probably include way to much for portability.

lxgrOP2mo ago

On Android, sharing code is much more feasible than on iOS as far as I understand it, especially if you're Google and can demand that everybody using your apps has Play Services installed.

Aperocky2mo ago

It's one thing to have common internal libraries and another thing to have the compile process blanket include everything that's in it.

vrighter2mo ago

Tree shaking is insane to me too. Just use a language that can actually do proper DCE, if you're not building a website.

(I do realize though that most "apps" are just websites without the browser toolbar, unfortunately)

lenerdenator2mo ago

For what it's worth, Outlook for iOS on my iPhone has an executable that weighs in at 368.8 MB.

Google needs to trim some stuff down.

mrweasel2mo ago

Apple Mail on macOS is 16-30MB, so something is still clearly of.

lxgrOP2mo ago

To be fair, Apple is the only developer in the world that can ship (cross-app) shared libraries on iOS, so they have a bit of an advantage.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

themafia2mo ago

> Tree shaking

Modern development is insane to me. "Let's do it badly, and hope a tool can fix it for us."

"Is anyone keeping an eye on the tools? No? Perfect!"

Particularly for developers inside the company that owns the platform. At some point they have to recognize they've completely screwed all this up.

seizethecheese2mo ago

Is it plausible that the libraries are so big? I mean, for example, NodeJS is in the order of 100mb and contains the whole v8 engine.

The Gmail app size has to be assets, right?

reactordev2mo ago

chasil2mo ago

The use of Go will definitely do that, as it prefers to statically link everything.

https://go.dev/wiki/Mobile

If we had an entire POSIX OS built with Go, then we would be back to statically-linked UNIX prior to BSD.

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/golang-statically-and-dyna...

1 more reply

tormeh2mo ago

That's a lot of code, though. I can't imagine common libraries so big. The Linux kernel is less than 100mb.

2 more replies

tgsovlerkhgsel2mo ago

stonemetal122mo ago

On Android, Gmail reports as being under 200 MB. So I agree, they probably include way to much for portability.

lxgrOP2mo ago

On Android, sharing code is much more feasible than on iOS as far as I understand it, especially if you're Google and can demand that everybody using your apps has Play Services installed.

Aperocky2mo ago

It's one thing to have common internal libraries and another thing to have the compile process blanket include everything that's in it.

vrighter2mo ago

Tree shaking is insane to me too. Just use a language that can actually do proper DCE, if you're not building a website.

(I do realize though that most "apps" are just websites without the browser toolbar, unfortunately)

lenerdenator2mo ago

For what it's worth, Outlook for iOS on my iPhone has an executable that weighs in at 368.8 MB.

Google needs to trim some stuff down.

mrweasel2mo ago

Apple Mail on macOS is 16-30MB, so something is still clearly of.

lxgrOP2mo ago

To be fair, Apple is the only developer in the world that can ship (cross-app) shared libraries on iOS, so they have a bit of an advantage.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse