Time to First Byte: What It Is and Why It Matters by Harry Roberts

I Built the Same App 10 Times: Evaluating Frameworks for Mobile Performance | Loren Stewart

A very, very deep dive into like-for-like comparison of JavaScript frameworks. The takeaway:

Nuxt demonstrates that established “big three” frameworks can achieve next-gen performance when properly configured. Vue’s architecture allows competitive mobile web performance while maintaining a mature ecosystem. React and Angular show no path to similar results.

And the real takeaway:

Mobile is the web. These measurements matter because mobile web is the primary internet for billions of people. If your app is accessible via URL, people will use it on phones with cellular connections. Optimizing for desktop and hoping mobile is good enough is backwards. The web is mobile. Build for that reality.

It’s time for modern CSS to kill the SPA - Jono Alderson

SPAs were a clever solution to a temporary limitation. But that limitation no longer exists.

Use modern server rendering. Use actual pages. Animate with CSS. Preload with intent. Ship less JavaScript.

(optional.is) Latency and the Sea

Brian’s excellent comparison of network latency and the nervous system of animals:

If an earthquake occurs in California USA, halfway around the globe someone can find out faster than a blue whale detects something has touched its tail.

MS Edge Explainers/Performance Control Of Embedded Content / explainer.md at main · MicrosoftEdge/MSEdgeExplainers

I like the look of this proposal that would allow authors to have more control over network priorities for third-party iframes—I’ve already documented how I had to use a third-party library to fix this problem on the Salter Cane site.

Moving on from React, a Year Later

Many interactions are not possible without JavaScript, but that doesn’t mean we should look to write more than we have to. The server doing something useful is a requirement for building an interesting business. The client doing something is often a nice-to-have.

There’s also this:

It’s really fast

One of the arguments for a SPA is that it provides a more reactive customer experience. I think that’s mostly debunked at this point, due to the performance creep and complexity that comes in with a more complicated client-server relationship.