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jj (2990)

jj
  (email not shown publicly)
http://perl.jonallen.info/

Software development manager for OpusVL [opusvl.com], member of Birmingham Perl Mongers [pm.org] and maintainer of http://perldoc.perl.org [perl.org].

Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/JJ_Perl [twitter.com].

Journal of jj (2990)

Wednesday July 22, 2009
05:39 AM

Improving perldoc.perl.org load times

[ #39332 ]

Following the perldoc design update, I've now started work on various fixes and optimisations.

The first of these is page load time.

After profiling in Safari, it became apparent that a large proportion of the load time was due to latency, and that the JavaScript files were blocking the loading of images, delaying the final page render.

These issues are now fixed, and the stats for the perldoc homepage are as follows:

  • Images
    Reduced from 10 to 3
  • JavaScript files
    Reduced from 4 to 1
  • HTTP requests
    Reduced from 19 to 9 (3 of which are for Google Analytics)
  • Total download size
    Reduced from 222Kb to 165Kb

With a few extra tweaks to the object load order and placement of JavaScript files, the overall page load time should now be significantly reduced.


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Improving perldoc.perl.org load times 12 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • That sounds like 3 unnecessary requests.

    • Fortunately, they're easy to block at the DNS level.

      • Oh, they're already in my privoxy blockfile, right between fimserve and googleadservices. I just don't understand why perldoc.perl.org needs to even try.

        • I just don't understand why perldoc.perl.org needs to even try Perhaps you could ask.
          --

          --
          xoa

          • Okay... which of the features listed here

                    http://www.google.com/analytics/ [google.com]

            does it use?

            • I don't know, I'm not the one who maintains the site, or even put it together.

              My point was merely that it's silly to say "I can't understand why" if you haven't tried to find out the answer.

              --

              --
              xoa

              • Just like it's silly to suggest that I didn't reason about the potential user-tracking needs of an open source project's documentation site. But anyways...

                • I'm sure you did consider some ideas about why one might want to use Google Analytics.

                  However, there are probably reasons that you didn't consider that Joshua found important. I suggest that if you want to know what they are, that you ask him.

                  --

                  --
                  xoa

            • One reason is for the browser and OS statistics - these tell me what platforms I need to test on.
  • Thanks for your work on speeding things up. It sounds like you've made a big change for the better for the users.
    --

    --
    xoa

  • You probably know this, but another traditional approach is to put the JS files at the end of the HTML doc. The YSlow Firebug add-on probably has some other good tips.

  • I just wanted to say thanks for the work you've put into this. JFDI at its finest. It's a thankless task and seeing some of the less than helpful replies to some of your perldoc posts here makes me shake my head. Your work is appreciated mate.

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