I spoke at SXSW ‘09 this past weekend. My session was called Even Faster Web Sites. This is also the title of my next book, so it’s my way of linking my talks with the book. But I realize now that some people might think all of my “Even Faster Web Sites” presentations might be the same material. They’re not! I try to bring out new material for every talk I give. As I finish chapters for the next book, I use that material in the next presentations I give. This talk incorporates five upcoming chapters:
- Load scripts without blocking
- Coupling asynchronous scripts
- Don’t scatter inline scripts
- Use iframes sparingly
- Flush the document early
This is the first time I cover all five of these best practices. My session was packed (they stopped letting people in) and it got the highest ratings for that time slot, so I think the material is useful. Checkout the ppt slides or see them on Slideshare. (There’s a lot of animation and hidden slides in this deck which is only visible in the ppt slides).
My next talk is at Web 2.0 Expo on April 1 (no fooling) April 2 (turns out I was fooling), where I’ll present two new chapters about CSS selectors and worldwide issues with gzip. I hope to see you there.
Doug Dosberg | 17-Mar-09 at 7:48 pm | Permalink
Thanks Steve! I really enjoyed your sxsw talk. I’m curious of the app/plugin in your presentation – the one with the icons next to the page requests. Is this something publicly available?
Steve Souders | 17-Mar-09 at 8:54 pm | Permalink
That was IBM Page Detailer. Since they stopped selling the pro version, I now use HttpWatch from Simtec.
sunnybear | 18-Mar-09 at 3:08 am | Permalink
Thx, good presentation. But I think there should be more practical material about live coupling tree of external scripts and inlide code.
Nagaraj Hubli | 18-Mar-09 at 10:16 am | Permalink
Is the presentation been recorded? I searched for the video in the Goog, did not find it. I liked the ppt though :)
jaronbarends | 29-Mar-09 at 11:08 pm | Permalink
you can check out the podcast here:
http://audio.sxsw.com/2009/podcasts/D2%20SXSW_PODCASTS/031409_AM1_BallB_EvenFasterWebSites.mp3
Beth | 02-Apr-09 at 8:01 am | Permalink
I was curious why don’t use Firebug? Their waterfall chart seems decent…
I also use Fiddler2’s chart in IE.
Sherri | 23-Apr-09 at 12:40 pm | Permalink
Have you done some comparisons including scriptmanager composite script?
I implemented an altscriptmanager composite script on a client site where I used jQuery in place of Microsoft AJAX as the framework. Thus all of the scripts were combined into one script in the order I set and was cachable.
Had I used the Microsoft AJAX framework instead, I could have had automatic minifying built in but I was already using jQuery and did not want Microsoft AJAX to cause any issues as well as weight.
I’m curious if any of your techniques could improve page load even more.