Wavemaker

There have been a couple of forum posts lately having to do with the payload of a typical WaveMaker application. While we are not the lightest-weight platform out there, and we have yet to optimize for mobile use, there are a few things to point out:

1. When you click “Run” in the studio, the resulting application is actually not the same as when you generate a WAR file. When you “generate WAR” from the studio, we perform a build that includes combining JavaScript files, reducing requests, and decreasing payload.
“Run” actually means “Test Run”, which we should make more clear. Test Run actually intentionally leaves all the javascript exploded, so you can easily debug, and so that the application appears faster without the overhead of a build. So Test Run can have a payload of a couple hundred requests and nearly 1MB, while the actual WAR file we generate has a far more modest number of requests and payload size that is in- line with other Ajax applications. So if you are benchmarking us, please do so on the actual deployed WAR, not running from studio.

2. Currently, we do not optimize payload based on what widgets you use. So a 1-widget app downloads the entire widget set. Again, this is more apparent in Test Run - our javascript build makes things somewhat better in deployed applications.

3. That said, we are almost done with a performance-themed release. We should make some further gains in both payload as well as rendering speed. Stay tuned for more details as the release nears.