Performance Chat Summary: 14 November 2023

Table of Contents

Announcements

@swissspidy Translation performance:
- Published blog post about merging the feature plugin
- PR is still in code review
@flixos90 I updated https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/5267 yesterday, which improves performance of parsing `theme.json` files on every page load for sites using a persistent object cache, and I then opened an equivalent Gutenberg PR https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/56095 (since that change should be implemented and tested in Gutenberg first)
- PR is ready for review! You can use either PR for testing (as they are the same) but the Gutenberg one is the one that needs to be prioritized
@joemcgill Work is ongoing on our Template Loading focus. The most important thing for this week is probably to address #59719, which will unblock several of the other pieces of work.
@joemcgill I’ve also been tracking a 6.4 bug that was related to our earlier server response time work #59847

@thekt12 had previously done some exploration about ways to improve caching in get_posts that he was looking to get feedback on. See https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02KGN5K076/p1699895783831599

@flixos90 A few months ago, I had been exploring a PL module for the new Speculation Rules API, which allows “speculative prerendering”. TL;DR when you hover over a link, it prerenders the relevant content under certain conditions so that when you actually click, the page loads instantly.
- I yesterday updated the PR, which is still only a draft: https://github.com/WordPress/performance/pull/733 But there have been recent developments in the spec and it is likely going to be available in Chromium without requiring an Origin-Trial, at which point it may be worth advancing this further. Right now you can test it through the Origin-Trial if you like, instructions are on the PR.
- I have also added a few new “learn more” resources to the PR description that may be worth reading to get familiar with the purpose and behavior of the API

@joemcgill I’m in the early stages of looking at how we can improve the way WP calculates the sizes attributes of images. I’m currently looking at whether we can add this information during block rendering, using the WP_HTML_Tag_Processor and the theme.json layout settings. I hope to have some ideas to share in the next few days.
@westonruter For image loading optimization, the pull request for the storage component is ready for review: https://github.com/WordPress/performance/pull/878 – next I’m working on the optimization piece to applied the stored page metrics that have been detected.

@swissspidy We‘re now measuring more stuff in the core performance tests, like localized setup and memory usage

@10upsimon Did another round of iteration following review for https://github.com/WordPress/performance/pull/864, there is one minor comment needing addressing and I’ll wait for @flixos90 to review current changes.
@flixos90 Related, I just opened a PR to merge back trunk, that should be trivial. Would be great to get 2 approvals on this so we can merge https://github.com/WordPress/performance/pull/882

@luisherranz I’d like to mention that @cbravobernal and I have started experimenting with possible APIs to support modules and import maps in WordPress.
- We have started in Gutenberg, as we want to test them out in the frontend (with the Interactivity API) and the Editor (with the work @jsnajdr is doing on Block Lazy Loading).
- The goals of this initiative and the report of our progress are here:
  - https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/55942
- There are a couple of experiments already, and we plan to do a third one. It’d be great to have your feedback and insights
- @flixos90 Great to see this move forward! Would you say the most useful way for us is to review the different PRs and their approaches? Are there other concrete questions where feedback is needed?
- @luisherranz I’d say that for now, starting to get your opinion on those PRs or even the tracking issue would be great.
@clarkeemily Another Gutenberg issue brought up: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/55892 if anyone has time to review please?