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HTTP Pipelining – Not So Fast…(Nor Slow!)

HTTP Pipelining is an old optimization technique that’s been getting some renewed interest recently. I’ve written in the past about how pipelining is broadly used in Mobile, and recently Chrome & Firefox have been considering enabling it by default.

I set out to try and assess the value of pipelining for page load times, and surprisingly found it have very little effect. This result surprised me, so I dug deeper and looked at this data from multiple angles – the rest of this blog summarizes my research and findings.
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Technical

Front-End Optimization Architecture – Decisions and Implications (Part 1)

Update: The follow-up post after reading this one (Part 2) is now posted here.

In the last Velocity, Pat Meenan gave a presentation reviewing Front-End Optimization (FEO). Pat did a great job discussing when you should use an automated solution, pointing out some of the strengths and weaknesses, and offering his thoughts about cloud-based vs on-premise solutions. One thing Pat didn’t cover is the core architecture of the FEO solution – namely where and how the analysis is performed. Since FEO has been at the center of my life for the past few years, I wanted to share my thoughts on the architecture aspects that matter. Read the rest of this entry »

Technical

Performance Implications of Responsive Design – Book Contribution

I had the pleasure of writing a small contribution to Tim Kadlec‘s awesome upcoming book “Implementing Responsive Design”. The book is a great pragmatic guide for how to build a responsively designed website, including the basics, advanced use-cases and practical advice on how to overcome the challenges RWD faces today. You can read more about it and pre-order it today here.

The book includes some great contributions from top thinkers in the Mobile Web space, and I was honoured to be included in that list. My contribution is related to my recent “Performance Implications of Mobile Design” presentation from a recent Breaking Development conference, and it’s included below to help you bridge the gap until you buy the the full book!
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Mobile