-----Original Message----- From: wikitech-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Gregory Maxwell Sent: 16 September 2009 22:35 To: Wikimedia developers Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Usability initiative(HotCatreplacement/improvements etc.)
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 5:24 PM, Jared Williams jared.williams1@ntlworld.com wrote:
Can distribute them across multiple domain names, thereby
bypassing
the browser/HTTP limits.
Something along the lines of 'c'.(crc32($title) & 3).'.en.wikipedia.org'
Would atleast attempt to download upto 4 times as many things.
Right, but it reduces connection reuse. So you end up taking more TCP handshakes and spend more time with a small transmission window. (plus more DNS round-trips; relevant because wikimedia uses low TTLs for GSLB reasons) TNSTAAFL.
Indeed, it all rather depends on usage.
There is also that sprite option, combing all the icons into a single image, and using CSS tricks to display each icon. But seems far too much pfaff to keep track of, if want the individual icons as wiki content.
My personal prefered solution would be to have the icons in SVG and embed them directly into the page. But I guess that is not acceptable for the browser agnostic wikipedia audience.
Jared