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Via Eric Goldsmith, I found today this nice Web Performance 101 article, where the author, Alberto Savoia, states Top Four Laws of Web Site Performance. The article is as old as 2001 (heh, back then "website", being a relatively newer concept was spelled "web site" ) and the topic is performance, but the "laws" are strikingly fresh and applicable not only to performance, but to any aspect of the web development, and to the websites in general. I couldn't resist the urge to comment and add a 5-th law, so here goes.

1. The Law of Stickiness

People find a website they like which seems to do the job and they tend to stick around. Rarely are people loyal to a web site, so it's not uncommon for people to grow dissatisfied, or irritated, bored, or just find a better option... and migrate and stick around for a while at another site. Friendster-MySpace-Facebook anyone?

As a Yahoo! Search developer I would testify it's not easy to move people over from where they've been sticking around for a while, but it's already happening (Yahoo! Search grew the market share for 5 months in a row) and just the nature of things.

2. The Law of User Perspective

Successful sites are best developed when the developer is the user, when you build something for you and something you would want to use. But that's not always the case. So if your visitors are IE6, dial-up users a continent or two away from your server, don't assume that your Safari Mac browsing session from the room next to the server will be any indication of what users are experiencing.

3. The Law of Responsibility (a.k.a. It's Always Your Fault)

Whatever you do on the website - front-end, back-end, DB, network, whatever... you can change things for the better. So often we find excuses instead of solutions.

And as front-end developers (I assume most of you who read my blog), as, if I'm not mistaken, Nate Koechley puts it, "we're the last line of defense" for our users.

4. The Law of Expectations

People spend most of their time on other sites. Don't be the smart-ass with the cool, but useless and confusing feature. You'll be the only one who finds it cool. Be as fast as the competition, offer user experience people are accustomed to, e.g. put your logo at the top left corner.

OK, let me quickly wrap-up with my addition, before I get too cheesy and inspirational...

5. The Law of the Task

At the end of it, it's about the task. If people come to your site and are able to achieve their task (make a reservation, purchase, subscription, read an article, whatever) with minimum effort and distraction, they'll be happy. They'll recommend you, they'll say your site is fast (although technically, your roundtrip time may be not as good as the competition), they'll stick around (law #1). Don't request too much information in a form, don't be a PITA with your validation, walk the user through as little steps as possible... and get out of the way. People have more interesting things to do than spend time on your site. "If you love somebody, set them free". And you love your users, right

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

- John Lennon

Project is what happens while you're busy with strategy, planning or priotitizing.

- Stoyan Stefanov

And I'm not even talking about other equally amusing activities such as updating your Gantt charts, percent task completion and WBS

Take the time to watch this.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/ (via Phil)

Consumption and energy and recycling and generally destroying our planet are all topics that are increasingly interesting to me.

Currently reading "Why we buy" to better understand the enemy within

I've never been into crime fiction. I mean I've read The Hound of the Baskervilles, but that's about it. I like Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, looove Kurt Vonnegut, enjoyed On the Road, Catch-22... So it came as a surprise even to me when I started reading Raymond Chandler and actually enjoying it. The thing is I love to learn about the places I visit - culture, people, history, geography. Living and curious about LA now, I came across an article saying that Chandler wrote quite a few things about LA and California that stuck around. Anyway, I picked up a volume, read The Long Goodbye and loved it.

Just read an article about Chandler's writing process. Since I just started working on my new book, I found the article pretty interesting. The "normal" editing process I think is: you write a draft, you review it and scratch some parts, maybe replacing them with others, adding, removing. Chandler did the opposite - he underlined only the words that will stay in the next draft, everything else is to be rewritten or simply gone. This way he could tighten his sentences if not cut them in half. I like that a lot. Short is good, short is often clearer. It's so easy to be verbose, hoping this will clarify whatever you want to say. But often it isn't. I believe Mark Twain said something like "I would have written you a shorter letter, but I don't have the time"

That makes me think - it's so bad that most computer books today don't aim for brevity, but for volume instead. I've heard authors saying that their publishers love to ship big ass books on the market, because supposedly readers want big books. If it's big, there must be good stuff in there. Luckily my publisher is not like this, of course Although they would probably also agree that the overhead of publishing a 100 pages book is pretty much the same as a 1000 pages book. A tiny book still needs to go through the same process as the big one. So why not ship a bigger volume that will look more impressive. Imagine the dialog:

- Honey, how do you want to decorate this room?
- Hmm, I'd love to have a shelf of Java books right there, about four feet long. Yes, and right below it, gimme some design patterns and some .NET, half and half. Fabulous!

Ever asked yourself questions like "What's the meaning of it all?", "Are we alone in the Universe?", "Where's the mankind heading?", "What's my purpose in life?" I bet you have, everyone asks, but no one knows. People come up with stuff like religion because it's just too depressing to have the most important questions unanswered. Others joke about it, saying the answer is 42, admitting their cluelessness.

Well, my friend, worry no more, she has it all figured out.

Finally there's a book you can get on Amazon for the miserable pocket money "$19.77 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping" that will answer your most important questions and set your heart and mind at ease. "O's guide to Life" how comforting does this sound! Easy-to-follow instructions, pure wisdom, inspiration, "everything's alright now, everything's fine, close your eyes and relax, thinking of nothing tonight"

Some dudes (I'm looking at you, Buddha) spend years in meditation, trying to experience Nirvana, others dive into science or religion, others become mystics searching for the "other" thing hidden behind the apparent. Some claim they are a Lizard King, others... the list goes on. Well, with all due respect, they're all looking at wrong directions.

In order to "figure it out", the guide to Life, that is, one has to be an ultra busy host of a daily TV show, magazine publisher, interviewer, hi-life party goer/thrower, you have to read tens of books monthly so you can recommend one, you have to be involved in charity work and so on, and so on. That's how you do it.

We're so lucky, just in time for the Christmas shopping, O comes down to us mere mortals and gives us Her Guide, oh Happy Day!

I suspect there's more though, for the next two shopping seasons we might be able to enjoy the other parts of the trilogy:
- O's guide to Life
- O's guide to Universe
- O's guide to Everything

Check this out: Love what you do.

As I have already posted, a few months ago I discovered Paul Graham's site and I must admit, I love his articles. If someday they put up a book from the Chicken Soup series (you know, "stories that touch the heart and rekindle the spirit"...), entitled "Chicken Soup for the Programmer's Soul", they have the material right there, on his site, the articles are really inspiring.

Chicken soup? Why not, I mean there's already "Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover's Soul", for the Ocean lover's soul, for the sports fan's soul and other rather curious titles. OK, OK, I admit, the programmers probably don't fall into the group that will read such inspirational literature, but hey, nevertheless, I would argue that the programmers are not less important than the horse lovers, are they?