Performance Chat Summary: 15 November 2022
The full chat log is available beginning here on Slack.
Announcements
- Excellent update on the 6.1.1 release, which is going out today: 12 out of the 30 tickets in the 6.1.1 release are focused on performance! That is a great outcome and a testament to the team’s hard work on addressing some of the follow up quirks around 6.1 performance
Focus area updates
Images
@adamsilverstein @mikeschroder
- @adamsilverstein:
- Been working on “Implement new experimental fetchpriority module” which hopefully can land soon
- Also working on fixing a bug with
decoding="async"added in 6.1 which we fixed, and this new related ticket - also went through the repository reviewing open issues in the Images focus
- https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/470 from @pbearne looks interesting
- https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/427 still needs an owner to implement SVG support
- https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/354 seems like a nice addition to the dominant color feature
- @mukesh27: working on fixing the focal point problem when the dominant color is enabled, ready for review
- @mehulkaklotar: working on enhancement PR #571 about changing default WebP quality to 82, ready for review and merge
Feedback requested
- See above
- Needs Discussion (10 issues)
- Needs Review (5 issues)
Object Cache
- @spacedmonkey: No updates on object caching, has been focusing on 6.1.1 and theme.json
- @OllieJones: has a prototype of SQLite3 persistent object cache cooking; will make a module proposal soon (basically use SQLite for object caching rather than the main DB)
- @flixos90: I wonder how much that overlaps or potentially conflicts with the proposal to use SQLite as database
- @aristath: No overlap or conflict… But they can definitely be combined for a performance boost
- @flixos90: If a site can benefit from an SQLite DB speed and we implement that feature reliably, why would you not want to use that but then use it for an object cache?
- @OllieJones: there are many installations that could benefit from a persistent object cache plugin, without requiring a port of the main data to SQLite. And backup / redundancy / infrastructure would not need to change
- @flixos90: The idea sounds very useful to me especially given wider support of SQLite, but I would still like to explore a better answer on balancing this “SQLite as cache” project with the “SQLite as DB” project and the tradeoffs between the two
Feedback requested
- See above
- Needs Discussion (4 issues)
- Needs Review (1 issue)
Measurement
N/A
- No updates
Feedback requested
- Needs Discussion (5 issues)
- Needs Review (1 issue)
JS & CSS
- @aristath: No updates, has been working on the SQLite implementation (see Database section below) this week
Feedback requested
- Needs Discussion (4 issues)
- Needs Review (2 issues)
Database
- @aristath: SQLite PR is ready for another round of tests and reviews
- @flixos90: reviewed it a few times and it looks excellent to me. Some quirks to still address mostly. One thing I still want to explore a bit more is trying to figure out a way to have the SQLite DB prepopulated so that you don’t end up on the WP Install screen after updating the module; this wouldn’t be a blocker, but it would make the user experience a whole lot smoother
- @flixos90: I would suggest we polish this over the next week and aim for a merge within the next 2 weeks? This way we can publish the first version in the upcoming Performance Lab 1.8.0 release mid December
- @aristath will work on drafting a Make Core post on the SQLite module for once it’s in the Performance Lab plugin
- @flixos90: Best to draft it soon, so that we can review and finalize it early; this way we can publish it immediately the same day that that release will go out (December 19)
Feedback requested
- Needs Discussion (2 issues)
- Needs Review (3 issues)
Infrastructure
- @flixos90: Next Monday we’ll have the Performance Lab 1.7.0 release
- At the moment, there are still 5 PRs in the milestone which need to be committed or punted by tomorrow
- @mukesh27: PR #582 is ready for your review
- @flixos90: Given the size of the database health checks PR, I think it’s a bit too early (or too late, if you look at it from another angle) to merge it this short before the release, also since it’s a new module
- @OllieJones: ok. let’s punt it; will iterate on it so maybe we can merge it in the next few weeks for 1.8.0
- @mehulkaklotar: PR #571 is under reviews right now, we will be able to merge it before tomorrow
- @pbearne: I believe they are ready but will check
Feedback requested
- See above
- Needs Discussion (5 issues)
- Needs Review (3 issues)
Open floor
- @OllieJones: I’d like to see w.org sign up for the https://greensoftware.foundation/
- @flixos90: What kind of effort or commitment does that entail? As mentioned on the issue that you opened about this, this would probably be best to move forward with a Make Core post proposing it; getting a sense of interest at a larger scale is one reason I’d propose writing a Make Core post
Our next chat will be held on Tuesday, November 22, 2022 at 16:00 UTC in the #core-performance channel in Slack.
