"web development" entries

Signals from the O’Reilly Fluent Conference 2015

From user-centric performance to cognitive resources, here are key insights from the O’Reilly Fluent Conference.

Experts from across the Web development world came together in San Francisco this week for the O’Reilly Fluent Conference 2015. Below we’ve assembled notable keynotes, interviews, and insights from the event.

User-centric performance metrics

Paul Irish, PM at Google Chrome, says it’s important to look at performance the right way. Rather than ask “what is slow,” instead focus on “what does the user feel?” Irish outlines four phases of interaction and what users expect to experience. “Focus on the user,” he says, “and all else will follow.”

Read more…

Image performance

Optimizing images is likely the biggest win for performance on your site

[Ed note: This is the second in a series of posts on web design and performance. You can see the introductory post here.]

Images make up the majority of most sites’ page weight. Thanks to their size and the number of image requests made by an average site, optimizing images is arguably the easiest big win when it comes to improving your site’s page load time.

chart

Let’s start by looking at the various image types available, and then work through the various options you have for optimizing them.

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Building Modern Web Apps, Build 2013, TechEd North America, and More

Tech events you don't want to miss

Each Monday, we round up upcoming event highlights from the programming and technology spaces. Have an event to share? Send us a note.

Modern Web Applications Utilizing HTML5 APIs webcast: Ido Green covers techniques and tools for building great “modern” web apps, including tips on Chrome DevTools, HTML5 power tools, and modern web app design techniques. Register for this free webcast.
Date: 10 a.m. PT, May 30 Location: Online webcast

TechEd North America: This is Microsoft’s main conference for IT professionals and enterprise developers. Get hands-on experience with more than 200 self-paced labs. If you need to convince your boss to let you go, there’s even a guide to help. For more information and to register, visit the TechEd website.
Date: June 3–6 Location: New Orleans, LA

Read more…

Location, Location, Location

Why where you put your script element matters

Everyone knows you add JavaScript to your page by putting your <script> element at the top of your HTML page, right? Not so fast. In part two of Head First JavaScript Programming Teasers, Eric explains the nuts and bolts of the <script> element: how to add it to your page, and where.

While you can put a <script> element just about anywhere in your code, there are a couple of things you should know before you make any decisions about where to add it. For instance, you might already know that the browser reads your page top down and starts executing your JavaScript as it gets to the code. That means if you put your JavaScript in the <head> of your document, the browser will execute the code before it loads the rest of the page. That might be what you want… or it might mean that users are sitting there looking at a blank page while your script is executing.

Watch the video for a couple of other tips about the <script> element, taken from our upcoming book, Head First JavaScript Programming.

And if you missed the first part of this video series, you can watch it here.

Yet another JavaScript book?

For the next 15 weeks, a new learning video every week.

Eric Freeman and I are writing a new book: Head First JavaScript Programming, and to go along with it, we’re creating a series of teaser videos to give you a taste of what’s coming in the book, and a chance to learn a few JavaScript tidbits.

Why undertake writing a JavaScript book now? After all, isn’t there already a Head First JavaScript book (not to mention all the many other JavaScript books on the market)? Well, to make a long story short, when we published Head First HTML5 Programming, a book that teaches you how to use all the new HTML5 APIs (with JavaScript, of course), we discovered something: a lot of folks know a little JavaScript, but really want to understand it at a deeper level. They want to go beyond just simple scripting. To remedy that, we ended up taking a month to write a brief introduction to JavaScript in our Head First HTML5 Programming book, but it wasn’t enough. Readers needed more.

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Emerging languages spotlight: Elm

Evan Czaplicki on breaking the HTML-CSS-JavaScript blockade with functional reactive programming.

Over the next few months I’ll be taking a look at new and emerging programming languages. The following piece is the first in this series.


The Elm Programming Language, created by Evan Czaplicki, tackles web interaction and takes on the big three — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Czaplicki to talk about why he decided to take on this daunting project and how Elm could revolutionize web programming.

Czaplicki was working on a front-end web project and he was thinking about how is it that web development can be “so frustrating in a way it didn’t have to be.” That was the day Elm was born (he talks about that moment in this segment of our video interview).

Today’s websites bear virtually no resemblance to those from 10 years ago, so why are we using the same tools? Cyclical upgrades to HTML, CSS and JavaScript have certainly enhanced and improved upon older versions. HTML5 has taken some great leaps forward. But we’re still using the core.

Coming from a functional programming background led Czaplicki to think about web programming from the perspective of functional reactive programming. What is functional reactive programming? It takes away the idea that interaction between a website and user is static — updating only at certain moments or clicks — and inserts the capability to update as events happen, like mouse movements. Czaplicki gives more detailed insight here. Read more…