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Interesting extract from one of the files [news.bbc.co.uk]:
/*
an overly long list of variables - could well be reduced
// */
Still, it's clear from the various different coding styles that a diverse range of people have worked on this at varying times, so it's little wonder there's not much in the way of cohesion. Doesn't look like they even use gzip, either.
HTML 2 78,706 26.2%
CSS 5 22,778 7.6%
Scripts 13 71,960 24.0%
XML 0 0 0.0%
Images 33 108,678 36.2%
CSS Images 29 17,862 6.0%
Multimedia 0 0 0.0%
Other 0 0 0.0%
Total 82 299,984 100%
Text to HTML Ratio: 5.95%
If you do a "site:www.bbc.co.uk" in Google it reports 15,200,000 pages!
As for HTML errors, I imagine they use some sort of centralized WYSIWYG to handle it all, so blame that.
As for the "an overly long list of variables - could well be reduced", while amusing, it's easy to understand that whoever originally wrote or controls that list now doesn't know which variables are or aren't used somewhere so can risk removing anything without breaking somebody else's code.
I think that's the unfortunate inevitability with a site that's just sooo big.
As for 83k, it would take about 300ms to download on most UK broadband connections, the entire homepage loaded in under 1 second on my laptop here.
I think what's important to note is their good use of web technology, mainly HTML with small inserts of DHTML, AJAX and flash. Just noted a nice little flash clock on the main page. The site is structured well, loads fast, flows smoothly, and is compatible (unable to test this assumtion) with all platforms and mobile devices.
But more importantly as you navigate the site, there are no javascript errors which is more than I can say for a lot of sites with relatively little js.
That said, I think that makes it an extremely good site.
[edit]
No, I don't work for the BBC! Nor have I studied the code structure, I was just trying to view the site as an end user would.
[/edit]
[edited by: Dabrowski at 2:24 pm (utc) on April 27, 2008]
Just noted a nice little flash clock on the main page
Show me a computer without the time.
tis pretty though ;)
I think it caught my eye 'cos it's analogue. And it just looks nice, and fits in with the design. It doesn't look like it was an afterthought.
well i'm assuming the clock shows bbc time, eg uk time which is useful
Errrr, don't know as I'm in the UK. Maybe someone elsewhere you check that?
Isn't it more like a throwback to when the BBC used a clock like that just before the 9'clock news?
... there are no javascript errors which is more than I can say for a lot of sites with relatively little js.
The BBC's knowledge of Javascript has improved recently.
For years their radio player (now called iPlayer) suffered from huge memory leaks--just let it play, no user interaction, and it would exhaust all of memory, requiring a restart--pretty poor for a radio!
But since the new version of iPlayer, perhaps a couple of months ago, memory leaks have disappeared.
