At my jQueryTO keynote on paint optimization, I mentioned the performance benefits of promoting DOM elements to a composite layer using GPU acceleration in Chrome. Moving compositing of page layers to the GPU can offer better efficiency than the CPU in terms of speed and drawing and is generally a good thing as you avoid slow copies of large data from video to system memory.
Whilst Continue Reading →
Increasingly, whether it’s on desktop or mobile, users want their web experience to be snappy and delightful. This means that even if the browser is busy rendering the page or loading in content, the user should still be able to scroll around and interact with it.
Animations need to be silky, scrolling must be buttery-smooth and your page needs to contain little to no jank. This comes down to offering an experience that can run at 60 frames per second even on regular pages, not just games and animations.
The video from my DotJS talk in Paris is now up. I hope it's useful. In it I walk through how to performance profile your apps using DevTools Timeline and the Heap profiler, debugging your mobile apps using Overrides, sexy SASS Source Maps, snippets, a live reload editing workflow with the tools and a few other juicy tips. Slides are also available.
Many of us care deeply about developing our craft, but staying up to date can be a true challenge, especially when the quantity of fresh information we’re regularly exposed to can be a lot to take in. 2012 has been no exception, with a wealth of evolution and refinement going on in the front end.
Great strides have been made in how we approach workflow, use abstractions, appreciate code quality and tackle the measurement and betterment of performance. If you’ve been busy and haven’t had time to catch up on the latest developments in these areas, don’t worry.
We all want to create high performance web applications. As our apps get more complex, we may want to support rich animations and that ideal 60 frames a second that keep our apps responsive and snappy.
Being aware of how to measure and improve performance can be a useful skill and in this short post, I'll give you a quick refresher on how this can be done with the Chrome DevTools Timeline and Profiles.
I'm on the Chrome team at Google, working on tools to help improve developer productivity and satisfaction.
My personal projects include TodoMVC, which helps developers compare JavaScript MVC frameworks and AuraJS. I've also written 'Developing Backbone.js Applications' and 'Learning JavaScript Design Patterns'.
First do it, then do it right, then do it better. This is one fundamental I always keep in mind when developing anything.
If you're a developer wishing to learn something new, regardless of skill-level, remember that as important as it is to read, it's equally as important to get out there and *do*.
Create a new gist or fiddle, pop open the console and experiment. It's effing fun.
I feel honored to have quite a few friends involved in OSS, many of who are spread across the world but remain active and passionate at what they do. Thanks to my wife, family and the OT-crew for being ah-mazing.
