1. Use regular polling intervals, do not use backoff polling, or jitter, as the interval will be
controlled by the server.
1. The backend code will most likely be using etags. You do not and should not check for status
`304 Not Modified`. The browser will transform it for you.
## Reducing Asset Footprint
### Page-specific JavaScript
Certain pages may require the use of a third party library, such as [d3][d3] for
the User Activity Calendar and [Chart.js][chartjs] for the Graphs pages. These
libraries increase the page size significantly, and impact load times due to
bandwidth bottlenecks and the browser needing to parse more JavaScript.
In cases where libraries are only used on a few specific pages, we use
"page-specific JavaScript" to prevent the main `main.js` file from
becoming unnecessarily large.
Steps to split page-specific JavaScript from the main `main.js`:
1. Create a directory for the specific page(s), e.g. `graphs/`.
1. In that directory, create a `namespace_bundle.js` file, e.g. `graphs_bundle.js`.
1. Add the new "bundle" file to the list of entry files in `config/webpack.config.js`.
- For example: `graphs: './graphs/graphs_bundle.js',`.
1. Move code reliant on these libraries into the `graphs` directory.
1. In `graphs_bundle.js` add CommonJS `require('./path_to_some_component.js');` statements to load any other files in this directory. Make sure to use relative urls.
1. In the relevant views, add the scripts to the page with the following: