Over at his very interesting blog, Yahoo! Web services guru Mark Nottingham has a terrific presentation he did at XTech 2006 called Web 2.0 on Speed [PDF]. He summarizes his basic insights as follows:
- Static Web servers are fast.
- Web Caches can help distribute applications.
- A little bit of AJAX spice goes a long way.
Well, we at Port80 couldn't agree more! -- especially about the wisdom of techniques like publish-to-static and using HTTP's built-in expiration-based caching.
Of course, back when we were saying this things several years ago, in various fora, they seemed to carry a little less weight, and we recall getting quite a few blank stares from supposedly-seasoned Web pros. But, then, we aren't responsible for writing Web 2.0 specs and making Yahoo! Web services run right, so it's understandable that the same or very similar ideas might not have had the same mojo. We don't really mind...
All in all, it's just nice to have our point of view about Web performance confirmed by such a distinguished authority.
Have an excellent weekend!
Cheers,
Port80