What is Digg?47 Comments
- fnord185, on 04/02/2008, -5/+41Ironically, this page took about 30 seconds to load.
- Otto, on 04/02/2008, -0/+28The site worked okay for me. The content is large, so I'll summarize it:
1. Combining small JS files into one big one is not always a good thing. Keep them separate and lean, but low in number. Use PHP to merge them on the fly where needed and where it make sense to do so.
2. CSS: Same thing.
3. Compression. Use it. mod_deflate and or mod_gzip are good, but precompressing the files when you deploy is better. Insert way to make mod_gzip work with precompressed gz files here. Insert the trick to make mod_gzip compress and cache on the fly here.
4. Compression doesn't work with some old as hell browsers (seriously, Netscape 4? You're worried about Netscape 4? Oh, the article was written in 2006, I get it), so using javascript and/or CSS compressors as part of your deployment process can be helpful (ugh).
5. Send good cache and expires headers. Put some thought into this, as it helps more than anything else when done right.
6. Smart use of rewrites can make things easier to code, and by changing filenames this way, you can force cache busting.
7. Combine techniques.
In short, it's a useful primer for those developers who didn't know much about web development already. - Fimus, on 04/02/2008, -1/+10Mirror: http://64.233.169.104/search?hs=sUq&hl=en&lr=&c2co ...
- bumcheekcity, on 04/02/2008, -1/+9Good article. It's nice to see some good, useful information appear on Digg :D
- rkuchiki, on 04/02/2008, -2/+9If your server can't handle the digg effect you shouldn't be giving advice on how to speed up a website.
- synyster, on 04/02/2008, -0/+6great article, especially the smart use of rewrite rules which is important when you have to manage lots contents.
- MacEnvy, on 04/02/2008, -0/+6It would be nice to see Digg follow their advice. Digg's JavaScript implementation is among the slowest around, regardless of your connection speed (and only marginally dependent on client-side processing power).
- masterkenobi, on 04/02/2008, -1/+7An app that I use when developing is YSlow, which analyzes your code for front-end optimization:
http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/
Also includes grades, explanations and suggestions on speeding up your site. - Stiffler, on 04/02/2008, -0/+5You may not see the "whoa" to Javascript all by itself, but with the popularity of asynchronous sites and advanced web apps, Javascript has suddenly become a VERY important piece of technology to use in conjunction with other technologies. The majority of the popular sites that you use wouldn't be possible or feasible without it.
- Numfar28, on 04/02/2008, -0/+4And there are warning labels for people like you:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/wasp-april-fools/ - dougle, on 04/02/2008, -0/+4Steve Sauders from Yahoo did a good book called High Performance Websites, which confirms alot of this stuff and expands on it a bit more
- Dubbsacc, on 04/02/2008, -0/+4My biggest problem with Flash was the way it cached pages. I haven't attempted anything Flash related since MX 2004 (AS 2 I think), so I'm not sure if the problem still exists.
Basically any external link in a Flash movie would always take you to the most recent cached page, regardless of browser. You had to pass a unique query string to get an update page when you clicked the link in Flash. - RyeBrye, on 04/02/2008, -0/+4for those using JSP - there is a JSP tag that does all of this for you, very very easily... pack:tag
- WatchDogX, on 04/02/2008, -0/+4More ironically it didn't load at all for me. You'd think with his caching knowledge he would implement it on his site.
- Todamont, on 04/02/2008, -0/+3really? because I was using CSS and javascript like ten years ago for my webdesign...
- stevemchey, on 04/02/2008, -0/+3Actually not really... Steve's original recommendations for High Performance Websites favored the monolithic approach, while Cal's write-up favors a splitting of often changed js from the more stable one.
- plainOldFool, on 04/02/2008, -0/+3holy crap, that's awesome. Sadly, I deserve some of those, me and my spacer.gif
- synyster, on 04/02/2008, -0/+3that's not bad considering amount of comments on the page.
- RyeBrye, on 04/02/2008, -0/+3His article, which you couldn't read, talked about browser-side caching with expires headers and such... not so much server-side caching.
Of course, he also talks a lot about using PHP - which is kind of a performance joke unless you cache the hell out of it. - inactive, on 04/02/2008, -0/+3affect ftw
- synyster, on 04/02/2008, -0/+3is XMPP basically two deamon on each side and using xml format to exchange data? it will save some unnecessary trip to server if the contents doesn't get change frequently.
would be a great, if the browser have a built-in xmpp server that manage all the "ajax" request and accept response from server, then update contents. - grumpyrain, on 04/03/2008, -0/+3How does digg impact ftw?
- coldwinds, on 04/02/2008, -0/+3Still, you got a wrong start when choose smarty..
- bigboss0101, on 04/05/2008, -0/+2This is a very old article.. I read this way back when it was first published.. I am surpised it didnt make it to the front page of digg till now.. or is this the second or third time its coming to front page?!
- plainOldFool, on 04/02/2008, -0/+2marquee tag FTL
- dbr_onix, on 04/03/2008, -0/+2Every web-programming language is a performance joke unless you cache the hell out of it (or it caches the hell out of itself)
Even if you code it in C, it could still need caching (assuming you use a database of some kind). The necessity of caching isn't really an indicator of performance really.. Besides, personally I think PHP is faster than it's current "rival" Ruby on Rails, which is in far more need of caching.. - xutopia, on 04/02/2008, -0/+2I stopped when I read "Netscape 4".
- habenneas, on 04/16/2008, -0/+2Fast, text-only mirror: http://www.lynxcache.org/usr/1/Vitamin_Features_ra ...
- mistergoomba, on 04/02/2008, -0/+2digg affect ftw
- inactive, on 04/02/2008, -0/+2Google cache:
http://tinyurl.com/yoed92 - heavyal, on 04/02/2008, -0/+2Amen to that .. I just about went ballistic when I saw them pushing the smarty template engine - what a pile of crap!!! My current web job has a group of forms that are all built on smarty and there is nothing 'smart' about them - its a hidge podge of pseudo code that turns a document that could have been a couple hundred lines long into this monolithic beast that spans 1000's of lines and multiple includes .. I swear if I ever get ahold of the programmer that made THAT programming decision ....
- inactive, on 04/02/2008, -0/+2@RyeBrye do you a link or example for this, i would love to see it in action.
Packing of JS and CSS , what about caching?
Thanks - codewater, on 04/02/2008, -0/+2Ehm, for me it took about 5 seconds.. on a shaky hotel wifi...
- meostro, on 04/02/2008, -0/+1You should note http://www.mnot.net/blog/2006/05/11/browser_cachin ... in the comments, since Cal originally wrote the article there have been a few changes in the browser world. It actually makes life easier for the WebDev world, since you don't have to worry about mod_rewrite rules if you don't want to.
Now go buy Cal's book, it's worth it: http://preview.tinyurl.com/2vuwgg
Steve Souders' book wouldn't hurt either: http://preview.tinyurl.com/2rq7xy - smthomas2008, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1I have also used javascript for my site http://www.semaphore-software.com/ and its download quickly & very user friendly. Also having Web 2.0 applications.
- cwgannon, on 04/02/2008, -0/+1They likely wouldn't be possible or feasible, but my sweet little baby Jesus, would they be a boatload faster. Consider Digg for a perfect example. (For another, visit bungie.net.)
- Atomic1fire, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1More useful then blink
thats just asking for a Lost viewer - pxlpshr, on 09/04/2008, -2/+2Next generation apps should be serving data via XMPP/Jabber, not archaic polling techniques.... more efficient AJAX is simply Web 2.5, I'd hardly call that next gen.
XMPP (a.k.a. Jabber) is the future for cloud services
http://www.jivesoftware.com/community/blogs/jiveta ... - tehmoth, on 04/02/2008, -1/+0it's all ECMAScript.
- rnolds, on 04/02/2008, -7/+2http://tinyurl.com/2e2lxo
- Monkofdoom, on 04/02/2008, -8/+3So fast that it kills your server
- zrcochran, on 04/02/2008, -7/+1I'd prefer you show me how to keep your website from going under.
- rnolds, on 04/02/2008, -8/+2http://www.duggmirror.com/
- sabach, on 04/02/2008, -7/+1"WordPress
Error establishing a database connection"
Inspiring... - inactive, on 04/02/2008, -9/+2Well since the link isn't working, here's another link to a completely different site. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KANI2dpXLw
- PRlME, on 04/02/2008, -11/+3i'm prolly going to get digg down for this (or the way i type, as digg users always dig me down for that as if i was still in HS and getting marked on it, with our understanding this is the internet like i give a rats ass about my grammar in a tube full of porn) Any how I dont really see a WHOA! to Javascript. With that said I think AS3 it more promising then Ajax would be...I mean I know It would be better to use Ajax for some things and Flash for others. I guess we just have to use the right options based on what we need. For now I think I will be set on learning AS3(Flash)
- nallelcm, on 04/02/2008, -23/+7give me 1997 and their blink tags over css and javascript anyday
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