[lugm.org] Upcoming meetup

Wed May 28 23:06:20 UTC 2014

On 28 May 2014 19:17, S Moonesamy <sm+mu at elandsys.com> wrote:

> Hi Ish,
>
> At 10:09 27-05-2014, Ish Sookun wrote:
>
>> Last note, we could also have a brainstorming session about an Open Source
>> Policy for Mauritius which hopefully will be a reality. We heard of this
>> in
>> the beginning of the year & now it seems the project took off. We'll need
>> input.
>>
>
> www.defimedia.info is based on Open Source software.  www.defimedia.infoonce had a problem; its web site was too slow.  The person responsible for
> www.defimedia.info did not ask for help on this list.  I tested the time
> it takes to load www.defimedia.info in a web browser.  It took 22.5
> seconds.  I don't know what industry practices is followed in Mauritius.
>  According to international industry practices the load time would be
> considered as inacceptable as it is too slow.
>
> The load time for www.gov.mu is 3.38 seconds.  The web site is not based
> on Open Source software.  Is the www.defimedia.info web site slow because
> it uses Open Source software or is it because there isn't the necessary
> support for Open Source software?
>
> Does anyone on this mailing list find it inacceptable that one of the top
> web sites in Mauritius is so slow?  Are there any local companies with the
> knowledge to fix the problem?
>
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy
>

Hello,

A website, whether based on opensource software or otherwise, depends on
many factors to get a good performance, mainly front-end coding, back-end
coding, and server configuration.

There are many things to write; I don't know where to start :-( Sorry for
not doing the analysis in a structured and consistent way...

*Font-end coding* (presentation layer): HTML, CSS, JavaScript

A simple inspection of the source of the homepage shows the following:
- use of different javascript framework (Mootools & jQuery) - why not use 1
? Using 2 because some JS plugin requires a particular JS framework ?
- use of too many JS plugins/libraries to do simple stuff (they could have
coded few JS lines instead of using plugins / libraries)
- (JS) use of eval() - eval'd code executes more slowly
- use of separate icons (image files) instead of sprites. Other images need
compression (using JPEGmini ?)
- including social media & ads network - facebook, google+, disqus,
googleads (hence loading their JS libraries) causes slow load times

Defimedia.info is hosted on a server in Dallas. I've done some performance
tests using a server in Kansas City ! Results, not good at all (what about
Mauritius ?) :

Document CompleteFully LoadedLoad TimeFirst ByteStart RenderSpeed
Index<https://sites.google.com/a/webpagetest.org/docs/using-webpagetest/metrics/speed-index>DOM
ElementsTimeRequestsBytes InTimeRequestsBytes InFirst View17.298s3.416s
6.698s6865322717.298s2503,053 KB17.298s2503,053 KBRepeat View8.170s0.065s
5.855s641632278.170s115740 KB9.292s118790 KB

The first bytes start to arrive at around 3.4s (what the server was doing ?
PHP ? SQL ?) and rendering starts at around 6.7s - this means that DOM is
ready after around 3s (good developers know that a webpage must render
quickly; hence server must send contents quickly + DOM must be made ready
quickly for browser to start rendering - include JS in the <HEAD> may slow
down the rendering process; JS is put at the end of the document with the
exception of Modernizr, if used. CSS must be in the <HEAD>, then contents
(<BODY>), then before closing the <BODY>, you include JS. The browser
should first render the page using DOM contents and CSS, while JS should be
made to execute last.

*Back-end coding* (application & database layer): Server-side programming
language (e.g. PHP), SQL statements
- PHP coding ?
- Database ?
> SQL queries ?
> Use of indexes in DB tables to speed up SQL execution. Not using indexes
will increase execution time on server
> Query caching ?

*Server configuration*: VPS ? Dedicated ? Shared ?
- Load balancing, contents on CDN, accelerators (e.g. Varnish), etc. @Ish /
@Ronny may shed more lights here

Regards,

*Mohammad Nadim Attari*
Bon Air Branch Road
8th Mile, Triolet
Republic of Mauritius
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