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> used much less JS

The homepage loads 9.7kB of JS. Navigating to every single link in the main nav results in no additional JS being loaded.

The site is fine.

This page doesn't need JS. It doesn't need a loading indicator for said JS. It could just be html and css, otherwise unchanged.

Sometimes people want things we don't need. It doesn't need Javascript but it allows certain nice to have features, like instantaneous page loads.

> it allows certain nice to have features, like instantaneous page loads

Right, but I do not think this is the case here

Home pages: Ruby 4.3mb, Python 1.3mb, java.com 2.1mb, raku.org 360kb, typescript 2.1mb

Yeah but them's highway miles. I have much less care about a site loading images than the stuff that makes the mobile nav work. Images are pretty!

For instance, here's Python's 144kB JS-powered homepage mid-load: https://imgur.com/a/OvYVAMS

And theirs doesn't even have any pretty images! That said, Ruby really ought to give those images a compress.