Book Review: High Performance Web Sites - Steve Souders

High Performance Web Sites by Steve Souders is one of the most important books front end engineers should read to be able to develop a proper web sites. In 14 chapter, you will know 14 of the best tips to enhance the performance of your website. the author gives example by numbers and statistics about the top 10 websites on the internet. In each tip Steve tells the effect of applying this tip on the top 10 websites.

This book is short and definitely very good in term of contents. The subtitle is, "Essential Knowledge for Frontend Engineers." The book is a quick read compared to most technical books, and not just due to its relatively small size (168 pages), but also the writing style.

According to Joe (Developer of Firebug debugger and Mozilla's DOM Inspector) -
"If everyone would implement just 20% of Steve's guidelines, the Web would be a dramatically better place. Between this book and Steve's YSlow extension, there's really no excuse for having a sluggish web site anymore."

Each performance rule in the book is supported by specific examples, and code snippets are available on the book's companion web site. The rules include how to:
* Make Fewer HTTP Requests
* Use a Content Delivery Network
* Add an Expires Header
* Gzip Components
* Put Stylesheets at the Top
* Put Scripts at the Bottom
* Avoid CSS Expressions
* Make JavaScript and CSS External
* Reduce DNS Lookups
* Minify JavaScript
* Avoid Redirects
* Remove Duplicates Scripts
* Configure ETags
* Make Ajax Cacheable

Here I have shared a presentation by Steve Souders and Tenni Theurer on
"High Performance Web Sites"