Wednesday, 21 December 2016

Front-End Performance Checklist 2017 (PDF, Apple Pages)


   

Are you using progressive booting already? What about tree-shaking and code-splitting in React and Angular? Have you set up Brotli or Zopfli compression, OCSP stapling and HPACK compression? Also, how about resource hints, client hints and CSS containment — not to mention IPv6, HTTP/2 and service workers?

Back in the day, performance was often a mere afterthought. Often deferred till the very end of the project, it would boil down to minification, concatenation, asset optimization and potentially a few fine adjustments on the server’s config file. Looking back now, things seem to have changed quite significantly.

Performance isn’t just a technical concern: It matters, and when baking it into the workflow, design decisions have to be informed by their performance implications. Performance has to be measured, monitored and refined continually, and the growing complexity of the web poses new challenges that make it hard to keep track of metrics, because metrics will vary significantly depending on the device, browser, protocol, network type and latency (CDNs, ISPs, caches, proxies, firewalls, load balancers and servers all play a role in performance).

So, if we created an overview of all the things we have to keep in mind when improving performance — from the very start of the process until the final release of the website — what would that list look like? Below you’ll find a (hopefully unbiased and objective) front-end performance checklist for 2017 — a brief overview of the issues you might need to consider to ensure that your response times are fast and your website smooth.

The post Front-End Performance Checklist 2017 (PDF, Apple Pages) appeared first on Smashing Magazine.



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Monday, 25 April 2016

Web Development Reading List #134: AI, Keyboard Interactions And Living Style Guides


  

For a great project, we need a well-functioning team, solid style guides, smooth workflows and well-organized kick-off meetings. Last week, I found a couple of resources that help you achieve just that.

And, a bit further down the road, the developers shouldn’t miss out on anything either, of course, — having a proper workflow is essential to be productive, and that’s why it might be a good idea to start playing with Docker. Have a productive week ahead!

The post Web Development Reading List #134: AI, Keyboard Interactions And Living Style Guides appeared first on Smashing Magazine.



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HTML5 Media Source Extensions: Bringing Production Video To The Web


  

In the last decade, plugins such as Flash and Silverlight have enabled a rich consumption of video in browsers, powering popular services such as YouTube and Netflix. However, this approach has shifted towards HTML5 over the last few years.

Almost two years ago, the W3C published the final recommendation of the HTML5 spec, which came with a new set of HTML elements and APIs, especially for video. Some of them aim for more semantics in web pages but don’t introduce new features. Others extend the possibilities of the web and enhance the possibilities for developers without the need for plugins such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight or Java.

The post HTML5 Media Source Extensions: Bringing Production Video To The Web appeared first on Smashing Magazine.



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