Let's Build the Web We Want
I’ve seen this a few times over the past few months:
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js"></script>
What that basically says to Google is “give me the latest 1.* branch version of jQuery and make sure it’s minified.”
Continue reading “Performance Tip: When Linking to JavaScript on the Google Ajax Library CDN, Use a Specific Version Number”
One of the reasons I’m drawn to the performance side of the business is that it’s one of the few pieces of of your site or application where you can really know when you’re doing the right thing.
There are a lot of questions that can run through your head during a site build. Is the design right? How about the feature set? do these labels make sense? Is the language correct for my audience? Does this visualization truly illustrate the underlying data and add meaning? Was I right to use canvas? Should we be using web storage?
Those (and many other examples) are the things that can (and should) your thoughts. You can leverage experience and best practices throughout, but there are always mistakes, miscommunications and surprises waiting around the corner, so sweating the details of a design or interaction model can make or break an application.
One aspect that brings a little bit of certainty is the question of speed.
The site is either fast, or it isn’t.
There are certainly degrees of “fast,” a full featured application won’t be as fast as Google.com, but once you’ve defined a speed goal there are plenty of ways to know if you’re hitting your marks which makes it a bit more satisfying than the stuff that’s a little more nebulous (or takes a little longer) to measure.
Front End Performance for the Common Man: Practical Strategies to Speed Up Your Site from rob larsen on Vimeo.
Follow along with the presentation. (PowerPoint presentation)
Here’s the sample ant build script referenced in the deck. (Zip file)
And here’s the article mentioned in one of the early slides:
Why Front End Performance Matters to Everyone, Not Just the High Traffic Giants
I presented at Bocoup last night. It went really well. As always great people showed up and I think I did okay with my side of the bargain. I shot some video, we’ll see how that turns out. If it’s of reasonable quality I’ll be sure to share.
For anyone interested, here are a couple of downloads from last night.
And this is the sample ant build script referenced in the deck.
I’m going to write up the build script in a little bit more depth some time over the next couple of weeks.
I’m in the middle of finishing up my presentation, so I figured I might as well make an effort to get some people to show up to see the results of my hard work 🙂
Here’s the write up:
Front End Performance for the Common Man: Practical Strategies to Speed Up Your Site
Day: Wednesday May 19th 2010
Time: 6:30pm – 8pm
Cost: FreeRob Larsen will examine the core concepts and techniques behind the performance of the web’s fastest sites and will translate them into practical examples. This talk will cut across several technologies (JavaScript, CSS, Ant, Apache and more) to present a suite of tools any developer can use to speed up their site- no matter the size or budget. RSVP to The Event Page.
It’s going to be a really good talk- full of practical examples and advice for every flavor and level of web developer. You should totally go.