What ways can I test how my webpages run? How do I know what levels of usage (cpu and memory are what matters, I'm guessing) are acceptable?
Any advice to get me started?
+1
A:
Yahoo's YSlow is great for analyzing your pages and suggesting fixes to increase speed. Yahoo has also published some wonderful guidelines for making your pages fast: Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site
Mark Kinsella
2010-07-21 16:27:48
+1
A:
Javascript is fast becoming a lighting fast language in all of the latest browsers, I've never had any problems. Even with endless setTimeout's at a 50ms interval you won't get any problems. The best test is to try it in Internet Explorer 6, if it usable there then you've no problems at all.
Craig Fairhurst
2010-07-21 16:30:42
+1
A:
Steve Souders is an excellent resource for keeping up on web site optimization. I'd suggest following his High Performance Web Sites blog. Here is a recent and thorough article to review: http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2010/05/07/wpo-web-performance-optimization
Steve mentions Speed Tracer and dynaTrace Ajax Edition to test page performance.
Alternatively, you can record load times with Firefox Firebug plugin and/or Webkit's Developer Tools (Chrome, Safari, etc). Finally, YSlow is an amazing Firefox Firebug Plugin from Yahoo.
simeonwillbanks
2010-07-21 16:33:19
+2
A:
From a UI Standpoint, turn off javascript and see if your site works. If it doesn't, you've used too much....time to re-think your solutions.
And for the obligatory "that'll never happen" that will follow, yeah, there's users who still don't have JS turned on.....just like there's users who run IE6.
bpeterson76
2010-07-21 16:36:16
I wish more websites were designed with a "work first, Javascript later" mindset. It is one thing for a full blown desktop-like Web App to require Javascript be enabled, especially if you are informed up front that "This application will not work at all without Javascript. THE END". That's fine. But so many relatively static sites are completely broken without JS even for basic tasks, with absolutely no warning as such. NoScript users can attest.
MooGoo
2010-07-21 16:53:08
I agree, but you also have to determine your target audience that will be using your application. Some use-cases are fine being written in heavy JavaScript and you don't need to worry about if your applications works without JS or not. My idea, don't let IE6 and insecure users slow down your innovation. Just learn how to deal with those users gracefully.
Andrew Ellis
2010-07-21 16:55:03