anonymish

Yes 100% put your icons in an include file of svg defs.

There are a number of tools that will optimize svg files for size like svgo. Output straight from Illustrator, for example, has a lot room for improvement. I also usually end up hand-tweaking for things like removing the full style and doing that in my site's CSS.

What I think is really still needed are more options besides Illustrator for generating svg content. Yes, Inkscape is overall ok but is lacking in setup ease and genera speed.

There a number of programs that are so close to doing what is needed and then won't save or export an svg. Pixelmater, looking at you.

There are some really valid points in here and I dislike the idea of using the whole font when only a few icons are required.

But, isn't subsetting going to result in users now caching your subset instead of a cached copy of everything? I would think that does more harm than everyone grabbing a fully cached copy once from a cdn.

Yes, tuning out other conversations around me takes a lot of my energy to where I trudge through the day and want to go to sleep when I get home. I find when I work in a space by myself I am energized and productive. I'm currently at a desk by two other devs who have to talk to each other all day and I'm considering leaving an otherwise great job because of it.