Comment by pantelisk
18 hours ago
Yes, it's part of the fun. Original version was 65kb (with just the single editor mode and all the filters, mp3/wav export etc). But then having to add flac codec, tempo estimators and finally the multitrack mode, made it closer to 100.
When I started developing I was a little frustrated with how bloated the web felt back then so I took that direction, it's much better today though and it's no longer an issue, but I still find it fun to impose these constraints and try to work within or around them (there's this fascinating concept of constrained creativity)
I appreciate the attention to efficiency and avoiding bloat. As a frequent audacity user I'm thinking I might end up using this for a lot of simpler tasks.
That said the web offers such great techniques to maintain this. Passive loading of plugins for example could keep things snappy and light and load things when you need them.
If you want the perspective of a prospective long term user: I'd be very comfortable using your app even at tens of megabytes. You could probably keep your initial load pretty light but pull in larger modules as needed. There are certain effects and audio layering I often use in Audacity that would keep me there, but your modern interface and browser access are huge selling points. If your vision includes moving to a bigger editor I guarantee you you'll find a huge base who wouldn't even notice megabytes of code.
All very good points, not much to say I agree with you. With loading plugins on demand it could grow in size without affecting load and experience (and since offline mode is a separate link that would still be fine to be a little larger since it's fetching the app locally).