Don't make me wait! or Building High-Performance Web Applications

“Don’t make me wait”
or
Building High-Performance
Web Apps
Stoyan Stefanov, Yahoo!
Brownbag at eBay
August 11, 2009

About me
•  Yahoo! Search
•  Yahoo! Exceptional
Performance
•  YSlow 2.0 architect
•  http://smush.it
•  Books, articles
•  http://phpied.com

Importance of performance
•  Is it dev? QA? Afterthought?
•  Developers love it
•  But is it good for business?

•  Self-regulating system
•  Slow down = lose users
•  We all hate slow pages

1sec =
-2.8%
revenue

Gets worse
with time

After-effect

•  Yahoo!: 400 ms slower = 5-9%
drop in full-page traffic

Slower
pages get
less traffic

From 4-6
seconds to
1.5 seconds

“The premature optimization…
•  … is the root of all evil”
Knuth
•  “Make it right before you
make it fast”
Crockford

Measure, measure, measure
•  measure
•  profile
•  monitor

On trade-offs
“…everything has its drawbacks,
as the man said when his
mother-in-law died, and they
came upon him for the funeral
expenses”

Jerome K. Jerome
Three man in a boat

The Life of Page 2.0
HTML page
request onload settles request
sent

marriage? R.I.P.
conception birth graduation

User perceived
“onload” happens
somewhere here

The Waterfall
1.  Less stuff
2.  Smaller stuff
3.  Out of the way
4.  Start early

Less HTTP requests
•  Combine components

Less HTTP requests
•  Before:

<script src="jquery.js"></script>
<script src="jquery.twitter.js"></script>
<script src="jquery.cookie.js"></script>
<script src="myapp.js"></script>

Less HTTP requests
•  After:

<script
src="all.js"
type="text/javascript">
</script>

Less HTTP requests
•  Saved 3 HTTP requests

Less HTTP requests
•  repeat for CSS:

<link
href="all.css"
rel="stylesheet"
type="text/css”

/>

Less HTTP requests
•  CSS sprites for background
images

background‐position: ‐22px ‐0px;
width: 12px;
height: 10px;

Less HTTP requests
CSS sprites
•  Before: 15 requests, 6.8 K
•  After: 1 request, 1.4 K

Less HTTP requests
•  CSS sprites – a pain,
but there are tools

http://csssprites.com
http://spritegen.website‐performance.org/

Less HTTP requests
•  Inline images with data:
scheme

Less HTTP requests
•  data: URI scheme

$ php ‐r "echo base64_encode(file_get_contents('my.png'));”
iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAAGElEQVQIW2P4
DwcMDAxAfBvMAhEQMYgcACEHG8ELxtbPAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC

Less HTTP requests

background‐image: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KG...");

Less HTTP requests

<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBOR..." />

Less HTTP requests
•  works in IE!...

Less HTTP requests
•  works in IE8!

Less HTTP requests
•  MHTML for IE < 8

http://www.phpied.com/mhtml-when-you-need-data-uris-in-ie7-and-under/
http://www.hedgerwow.com/360/dhtml/base64-image/demo.php

Less HTTP requests - drawback
•  atomic components
•  invalidated by small changes

•  need to schedule changes

Less stuff? Cache
•  Cache is less universal than
we think
•  You can help

http://yuiblog.com/blog/2007/01/04/performance-research-part-2/

“never expire” policy
•  Static components with far-
future Expires header
•  JS, CSS, img

ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 10 years"

Inline vs. external
•  a.k.a. less http vs. more
cache
•  how about both?

Inline vs. external
•  First visit:

1. Inline
2. Lazy-load the external file
3. Write a cookie

Inline vs. external
•  Later visits:

1. Read cookie
2. Refer to the external file

Less stuff – duh!
•  No 404s
•  No duplicates
•  No near-duplicates

Duplicates
•  2903384828078080_1.jpg
•  2204648665418080_1.jpg
•  3801476378448080_1.jpg
•  3801476377438080_1.jpg

Near duplicates
•  30x30 vs. 49x49

•  Rounded corners, shadows

The Waterfall
1.  Less stuff ✔
2.  Smaller stuff
4.  Start early

Gzip
•  What to gzip?

HTML, XHTML, XML,
W00TChaMaCallitML,
CSS, JS, JSON, HTC,
plain text… all but binary

• (btw, check those older SWFs too)

Gzip
•  How to gzip?

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/…
Header append Vary Accept‐Encoding

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/web‐site‐optimization‐steps

Minify
•  Before
/**
* The dom module provides helper methods for
*    manipulating Dom elements.
* @module dom
*
*/

(function() {
    var Y = YAHOO.util,     // internal shorthand
        getStyle,           // for load time browser branching
        setStyle,           // ditto
        propertyCache = {}, // for faster hyphen converts
        reClassNameCache = {},          // cache regexes for className
        document = window.document;     // cache for faster lookups

    YAHOO.env._id_counter = YAHOO.env._id_counter || 0;

Minify
•  After
(function(){var
B=YAHOO.util,K,I,J={},F={},M=window.document;YAHOO.env._id_counter=YAHOO.en
v._id_counter||0;

Minify
•  YUI Compressor
•  Minifies JS and CSS
•  Tolerates * and _ hacks
•  More than minification

Minify
•  Minify inline code too

Gzip or minification?
•  62,885 bytes - original jQuery (back in
Aug 2007)
•  31,822 - minified with the YUI
Compressor
•  19,758 - original gzipped
•  10,818 - minified and gzipped FTW

http://www.julienlecomte.net/blog/2007/08/13/

Minify
•  minify HTML?
•  dangerous
•  write minified HTML

echo '<div class="my">',
       '<p>',
          $db‐>get('name'),
       '</p>',
     '<div>';

Minify
•  Strip quotes? No closing tags?
•  Some sites do

<body bgcolor=#ffffff text=#000000 link=#0000cc
vlink=#551a8b alink=#ff0000 onload="...." topmargin=3
marginheight=3><textarea id=csi style=display:none>

Relative URLs on my blog
>>> document.links.length
204
>>> … loop …
indexOf(‘http://www.phpied.com’)
130
>>> ‘http://www.phpied.com’.length
21
>>> 21*130/1024
2.666015625

Relative URLs on my blog
•  Compare:
•  2.66K - absolute links
•  1.4K - sprite of 15 elements

Images
•  http://smush.it

Images Loss-
1.  No GIFs, PNG8 less
2.  Crush PNGs
3.  run JPEGs through jpegtran
4.  Gifsicle for animations

http://yuiblog.com/blog/2008/11/14/imageopt-3/

Images – progressive JPEG
•  for images ~10K+

Images
•  eBay homepage could save
20% image sizes
•  Search –> 10%+
•  Item -> 30% (50K+)

Images – duh!
1.  Don’t scale in HTML
2.  Generated images should
be crushed PNGs too

Images
•  It’s only human to forget
•  All you need is a process so
you don’t have to
remember

204
•  The world’s smallest component?
•  204 No Content

<?php
header("HTTP/1.0 204 No Content");
// .... do your job, e.g. logging
?>

http://www.phpied.com/204-no-content/

The Waterfall
2.  Smaller stuff ✔
4.  Start early

Free-falling waterfalls
•  Less DNS lookups – fetch
components from not more
than 2-4 domains
•  Less redirects
•  Blocking JavaScript/CSS

JavaScript rocks!
•  But also blocks

html
js
png

png

Non-blocking JavaScript
•  Include via DOM
html
js

png

png

var js = document.createElement('script');
js.src = 'myscript.js';
var h = document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];
h.appendChild(js);

Non-blocking JavaScript
•  And what about my inline
scripts?
•  Setup a collection (registry)
of inline scripts

Step 1
•  Inline in the <head>:

var myapp = {
stuff: [],
};

Step 2
•  Add to the registry

Instead of:
  <script>alert('boo!');</script>
Do:
  <script>
    myapp.stuff.push(function(){
   alert('boo!');
    });
  </script>

Step 3
•  Execute all

var l = myapp.stuff.length;
for(var i = 0, i < l; i++) {
myapp.stuff[i]();
}

Blocking CSS?

But they do block:
•  In FF2
•  When followed by
an inline script

The Waterfall
3.  Out of the way ✔
4.  Start early

Cookies

•  less cookies
•  no cookies
•  www vs. non-www

3000 bytes of cookies cost 78ms

flush() early
html
png

js 
css

html

js
png
✔
css

flush()
<html>
<head>
  <script src="my.js"
type="text/javascript"></script>
  <link href="my.css"
type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />
</head>
<?php flush() ?>
<body>
  ....

Chunked encoding
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content‐Type: text/plain
Transfer‐Encoding: chunked

25
This is the data in the first chunk

1C
and this is the second one

0

Chunked encoding

•  Progressive rendering
- Semantic app chunks
vs.
- Server-level chunks

Progressive rendering
Chunk
#1

Chunk
#2

Chunk
#3

Progressive rendering

•  Server-level flush:
bing.com – every 1 or 2K
google (ungzip) – every 4K

Progressive + source order
1

3
2
4

The Waterfall
3.  Out of the way ✔
4.  Start early ✔

Life after onload
1.  Lazy-load
2.  Pre-load
3.  XHR
4.  JavaScript optimizations
5.  Rendering

Lazy-load

•  bells & whistles
•  badges & widgets

Preload

•  to help next page’s
waterfall
•  img, CSS, JS, DNS lookups

XHR (Ajax)

•  small – gzip, JSON
•  less – Expires
•  GET over POST

GET vs. POST for XHR
var url = 'test.php';
var request = new XMLHttpRequest();
request.open("POST", url, false);
// …
request.send('test=1');

JavaScript optimizations
•  Number of DOM elements
•  DOM access
•  Event delegation

Touching the DOM
function foo() {
  for (var count = 0; count < 1000; count++) {
    document.body.innerHTML += 1;
  }
}

Touching the DOM
function foo() {
  var inner = '';
  for (var count = 0; count < 1000; count++) {
    inner += 1;
  }
  document.body.innerHTML += inner;
1000
}
times
faster

Rendering
•  CSS on top
•  No separate print CSS
•  CSS refactoring
•  No AlphaImageLoader
•  Expensive elements
•  No CSS expressions
•  Image dimensions

CSS early on
•  No separate print CSS file

/* screen styles */
#nav {...}
.banner {...}
/* print styles */
@media print {
#nav {display: none}
.banner {display: none;}
}

CSS refactoring
•  CSS tends to grow
•  Find unused selectors –
DustMeSelectors extension
•  Cleanup things like:
  #header #menu {...}
  div#menu {...}
  ul li {...}

No AlphaImageLoader
#some‐element {
background: url(image.png);
_background: none;
_filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader
(src='image.png', sizingMethod='crop');
}

http://yuiblog.com/blog/2008/12/08/imageopt-5/

Expensive elements
•  Avoid or limit
<applet>
<object> (IE)
<iframe>

Life after onload
1.  Lazy-load ✔
2.  Pre-load ✔
3.  XHR ✔
4.  JavaScript optimizations ✔
5.  Rendering ✔

YSlow

•  Firebug extension
•  Why (is my page) slow?
http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/

Yahoo! performance rules
1.  Make Fewer HTTP Requests 19.  Reduce the Number of DOM Elements
2.  Use a Content Delivery Network 20.  Split Components Across Domains
3.  Add an Expires or a Cache-Control 21.  Minimize the Number of iframes
Header 22.  No 404s
4.  Gzip Components 23.  Reduce Cookie Size
5.  Put Stylesheets at the Top 24.  Use Cookie-free Domains for
6.  Put Scripts at the Bottom Components
7.  Avoid CSS Expressions 25.  Minimize DOM Access
8.  Make JavaScript and CSS External 26.  Develop Smart Event Handlers
9.  Reduce DNS Lookups 27.  Choose <link> over @import
10.  Minify JavaScript and CSS 28.  Avoid Filters
11.  Avoid Redirects 29.  Optimize Images
12.  Remove Duplicate JS and CSS 30.  Optimize CSS Sprites
13.  Configure ETags 31.  Don't Scale Images in HTML
14.  Make Ajax Cacheable 32.  Make favicon.ico Small and
15.  Flush the Buffer Early Cacheable
16.  Use GET for AJAX Requests 33.  Keep Components under 25K
17.  Post-load Components 34.  Pack Components into a Multipart
Document
18.  Preload Components

YSlow 1.0. rules
Document

YSlow 2.0. rules
Document

YSlow 1.0. rule weights
1.  Make Fewer HTTP Requests 8
2.  Use a Content Delivery Network 6
3.  Add an Expires or a Cache-Control Header 10
4.  Gzip Components 8
5.  Put Stylesheets at the Top 4
6.  Put Scripts at the Bottom 4
7.  Avoid CSS Expressions 3
8.  Make JavaScript and CSS External 4
9.  Reduce DNS Lookups 3
10.  Minify JavaScript 4
11.  Avoid Redirects 4
12.  Remove Duplicate JS 4
13.  Configure Etags 2

YSlow 2.0. rule weights
1.  Make Fewer HTTP Requests 8
2.  Use a Content Delivery Network 6
3.  Add an Expires or a Cache-Control Header 10
4.  Gzip Components 8
5.  Put Stylesheets at the Top 4
6.  Put Scripts at the Bottom 4
7.  Avoid CSS Expressions 3
9.  Reduce DNS Lookups 3
10.  Minify JavaScript and CSS 4
11.  Avoid Redirects 4
12.  Remove Duplicate JS and CSS 4
13.  Configure Etags 2
14.  Make Ajax Cacheable 4
16.  Use GET for AJAX Requests 3
19.  Reduce the Number of DOM Elements 3
22.  No 404s 4
23.  Reduce Cookie Size 3
24.  Use Cookie-free Domains for Components 3
28.  Avoid Filters 4
31.  Don't Scale Images in HTML 3
32.  Make favicon.ico Small and Cacheable 2

YSlow score
foreach rule
total += rule score * rule weight
end foreach
score = total / sum of rule weights

YSlow letter score
•  (A) 90 – 100
•  (B) 80 – 89
•  (C) 70 – 79
•  (D) 60 – 69
•  (E) 50 – 59
•  (F) under 50

Custom rule
1.  Add an Expires Header
2.  Configure Etags
Rule Weight Rule score *
Expires header 10 100 (A) 1000
ETags 2 50 (E) 100
Total 12 1100

Score = 1100 / 12 = 91.66 (A)
Note: max weight is 10, min rule score is 0

Rule scores
•  Start from 100
•  Penalty for every offence

Rule penalties
1.  Make Fewer HTTP Requests
2.  Use a Content Delivery Network
3.  Add an Expires or a Cache-Control Header
4.  Gzip Components
5.  Put Stylesheets at the Top
6.  Put Scripts at the Bottom
7.  Avoid CSS Expressions
8.  Make JavaScript and CSS External # ok -points
9.  Reduce DNS Lookups
10.  Minify JavaScript and CSS JS 3 -4/off
11.  Avoid Redirects
CSS 2 -4/off
12.  Remove Duplicate JS and CSS
13.  Configure Etags img 6 -3/off
14.  Make Ajax Cacheable
16.  Use GET for AJAX Requests
19.  Reduce the Number of DOM Elements
22.  No 404s
23.  Reduce Cookie Size
24.  Use Cookie-free Domains for Components
28.  Avoid Filters
31.  Don't Scale Images in HTML
32.  Make favicon.ico Small and Cacheable

Rule penalties

8.  Make JavaScript and CSS External
10.  Minify JavaScript and CSS
11.  Avoid Redirects -10 points
per
14.  Make Ajax Cacheable offending
16.  Use GET for AJAX Requests component
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties

3.  Add Expires Headers
10.  Minify JavaScript and CSS If expiration
11.  Avoid Redirects is less than
2 days
14.  Make Ajax Cacheable subtract -11
16.  Use GET for AJAX Requests points per
component
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties

10.  Minify JavaScript and CSS -11 points
11.  Avoid Redirects per
offending
14.  Make Ajax Cacheable component
16.  Use GET for AJAX Requests bigger than
500 bytes
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties

per
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties

12.  Remove Duplicate JS and CSS -2 points
13.  Configure Etags per
Make Ajax Cacheable
14. 
expression
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties

8.  Make JS and CSS External
14.  Make Ajax Cacheable Score is
16.  Use GET for AJAX Requests always n/a
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties

4 domains
12.  Remove Duplicate JS and CSS ok
13.  Configure Etags -5 points
Make Ajax Cacheable
14. 
per domain
19.  Reduce the Number of DOM Elements otherwise
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties

10.  Minify -10 points
12.  Remove Duplicate JS and CSS per
13.  Configure Etags offender,
Make Ajax Cacheable
14. 
including
19.  Reduce the Number of DOM Elements inline
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties

-10 points
14.  Make Ajax Cacheable per redirect
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties

12.  No Duplicates -5 points
per
14.  Make Ajax Cacheable duplicate
16.  Use GET for AJAX Requests JS or CSS
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties
-11 points
13.  Configure ETags per
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties
6.  Put Scripts at the Bottom -5 points
per XHR
9.  Reduce DNS Lookups without at
10.  Minify JavaScript and CSS least 1 hour
expiration

22.  No 404s

Rule penalties
5.  Put Stylesheets at the Top -5 points
6.  Put Scripts at the Bottom per
non-GET
9.  Reduce DNS Lookups XHR

22.  No 404s

Rule penalties
5.  Put Stylesheets at the Top -10 points
for every
9.  Reduce DNS Lookups elements
over 900

19.  Reduce # of DOM Elements
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties
14.  Make Ajax Cacheable per
offending
component
22.  No 404s

Rule penalties
per
component
16.  Use GET for AJAX Requests requested
19.  Reduce the Number of DOM Elements with over
No 404s
22. 
1000 bytes
23.  Reduce Cookie Size of cookies

Rule penalties
7.  Avoid CSS Expressions -5 points
8.  Make JavaScript and CSS External per
Reduce DNS Lookups
9. 
component
11.  Avoid Redirects requested
12.  Remove Duplicate JS and CSS with a
13.  Configure Etags cookie
22.  No 404s

24.  Cookie-free Domains

Rule penalties
-5 points
per offense
16.  Use GET for AJAX Requests or
19.  Reduce the Number of DOM Elements -2 if using
No 404s
22. 
_filter hack


Rule penalties
14.  Make Ajax Cacheable per scaled
down
22.  No 404s image


Rule penalties
-5 points if
size is over
16.  Use GET for AJAX Requests 2000 bytes
19.  Reduce the Number of DOM Elements and -5 if no
No 404s
22. 
expiration

32.  Small cacheable favicon

Performance matters
•  It affects the user happiness
•  It affects the bottom line

Front-end
•  That’s where most of the time
is spent

It’s a marathon
•  Not a sprint
•  Measure, monitor, link to
business metrics
•  Bugs are expensive as the
time passes, performance
bugs even more so

What’s a low-hanging fruit?
•  Takes one engineer
•  Takes 15 minutes

Steve Krug

For non-low-hanging fruits?
1.  Pick 2 or 3
2.  Fix, measure one by one
3.  Come back and iterate

Thank you!

Stoyan Stefanov
@stoyanstefanov
http://www.phpied.com

Don't make me wait! or Building High-Performance Web Applications

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