NG Site architecture and design

[Jon-86]

I'm up late again only this time its a Saturday so its no as bad. But I thought I would make use of my time, this time, and see if I can pick up a few new things.

I'm sure most people here have already had a look at the code that makes this site work. But it dose bring up a few questions. I have a rough idea of the hardware this site uses (mainly down to pics of the servers and info being posted a few years ago) and I have a rough idea of how that relates to the site itself. The site mainly acts as an interface to a web service. Now that's nothing new. But this site uses Javascript quite a lot, and that brings up the first question.

As well as being graphically more impressive, was the use of Javascript implemented to place some of the CPU load on each individuals computer saving the server in places where thats possible. Take the Art portal for example, we've been told this was done in JS rather than flash so all the image resizing etc if it is completely done in JS will be done on the users end saving the server from having to do any work say with a PHP based image library.

And thats literally the visible part of the iceberg. I would like to know the problems this site faces with the amount of data it has to process and the solutions that have been implemented to solve these problems. Are solutions designed with that in mind to begin with? etc etc etc.

I don't know if anyone user or staff member has any answer but I would be interested to know. And it was about time people people had a thread to boast in :P

[adam2510]

everything you view is still being loaded off the server so even if they did it in flash it still goes to the server and loads the flash but with flash it doesnt look as proffessional

another reason is flash cant be indexed as well as JS, it may be similar but its highly likely that if it were flash i wouldnt be able to search for NG artwork on google

For example with JS being used
http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/johnn yutah/tankman-x
http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en &safe=off&rlz=1B3GGGL_enAU306AU323&um=1&
sa=1&q=%22TANKMAN+X%22&btnG=Search+image s&aq=f&oq=

you can find it easier on google but i dont think that tom has set it up so each piece of artwork is indexable primarily because of copyright or because he cant be bothered to yet

so you get my point as in flash cannot be indexed as well and does not look as proffessional as JS

that is why they have done it like they have

[Jon-86]

At 7/5/09 12:19 AM, adam2510 wrote: that is why they have done it like they have

This thread has nothing to do with web design or SEO or "NG not being a flash based site" (which is obvious) when I say design I'm talking about the actual design of the underlying system that makes the site work.

The first example was about how they are able to move some of the processing requirements over to the the users machines through Javascript, instead of the server having to do the work.

[kiwi-kiwi]

I don't really mind that much that it's all made in javascript, I've got enough flops to spare and their server is very responsive, loads up pretty quick for a site that is viewed by a lot of people every day.

On the other hand I was wondering about size and file type restrictions on submitting pictures on the bbs, profile page, signature etc. I think they save them as raw data in the database