Performance team meeting summary 4 October 2022

Meeting agenda here and the full chat log is available beginning here on Slack.

Announcements

Focus group updates

Images

@adamsilverstein @mikeschroder

GitHub project

  • @adamsilverstein: Not much to update, worked on a bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. fix for #56442
  • @eugenemanuilov: #524 to disable JPEG subsizes generation for WebP images has been updated based on feedback from @flixos90
  • @mukesh27: Working on #525 to add a checkbox to the Media screen to enable multi-MIME type output, to match with the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. WebP implementation
  • @ankitgade: Working on background processing infrastructure related to image regeneration
    • Background job class PR #507 is merged
    • Background process runner PR is in progress and will be ready to review tonight
    • Adminadmin (and super admin) queue screen PR is work in progress
  • @khoipro: Any updates on SVG uploads?
    • @mxbclang: No one is actively working on this at the moment, so anyone can pick it up if they have time https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/427
    • @spacedmonkey: Not working on this right now, but may in the future. Biggest blockerblocker A bug which is so severe that it blocks a release. is that the library that everyone uses for cleaning SVGs requires PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 7.4 or higher 7+, so it would need to be forked/rewritten if we wanted backwards compatibility. If we wanted to make it a PHP 7+-only feature, it would make things a lot easier.
    • @flixos90: WP hasn’t really done that before, but don’t think it’s a no-go as long as it’s a non-critical feature
    • @spacedmonkey: PHP 5.6 is only 4% of WP installs, per https://wordpress.org/about/stats/
    • @adamsilverstein: We already do something like this with server support for images where you can’t use a format unless your server supports it
    • @flixos90: As long it gracefully falls back if unsupported and doesn’t break anything on older versions, would be totally onboard
    • @khoipro: What about sanitize and escape file uploading, and styling SVG in media preview?
    • @flixos90: Matt also mentioned a few years back that he would be open to WP offering certain features only to sites with HTTPSHTTPS HTTPS is an acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure. HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The 'S' at the end of HTTPS stands for 'Secure'. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted. This is especially helpful for protecting sensitive data like banking information., kind of similar
    • @spacedmonkey: The creator of the library was open to support, not sure how much work we would need to do to port back to 5.6
    • @flixos90: Unless backporting would be super straightforward, I would say it’s not worth our effort and we make it 7+ only
    • @ankitgade: We can analyze what issues we see on 5.6 to evaluate how difficult this would be

Feedback requested

Object Cache

@tillkruess @spacedmonkey

GitHub project

  • @spacedmonkey: Committed https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/56721 and need review and commit on https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/3403
  • @spacedmonkey: Also been profiling and testing WP 6.1 betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 2 – profiling data
    • @spacedmonkey: WP6.1 beta 2 has a slower page generation time than 6.0, in some cases by a lot (0.6325 vs. 0.2929 seconds), even with fewer DB calls in a lot of cases
    • @flixos90: Did you test 1 for each scenario, or multiple and then use average/median results?
    • @spacedmonkey: Ran at least three times and did median
    • @flixos90: If we could automate, maybe do something like 5-10 runs to make it more accurate
  • Also working on dev notesdev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. (1, 2, 3) – @mxbclang has reviewed and @flixos90 will take a look today or tomorrow
  • @khoipro: Will assign someone from their back-end team to take a look at profiling and testing, as well

Feedback requested

Site Health

N/A

GitHub project

  • We’re seeking 1-2 POCs for this group; if you’re interested, please comment here or pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.
  • @furi3r: Draft Make post is in progress for the new SH checks in 6.1, waiting for a final review before publishing

Feedback requested

Measurement

N/A

GitHub project

  • We’re seeking 1-2 POCs for this group; if you’re interested, please comment here or ping in Slack
  • @mxbclang: Getting closer to starting engineering on the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party performance checker thanks to @mehulkaklotar and @jjgrainger‘s work on a design doc

Feedback requested

JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/.

@aristath @sergiomdgomes

GitHub project

  • No updates

Feedback requested

Infrastructure

@flixos90

GitHub project

  • @flixos90: Per the vote to bump the Performance Lab plugin minimum requirement to WP 6.0, our next release will require 6.0
  • @flixos90: Our next release, 1.6.0, will be Monday, October 17, less than two weeks from now. Any feature or enhancementenhancement Enhancements are simple improvements to WordPress, such as the addition of a hook, a new feature, or an improvement to an existing feature. that you want to include in this release should be completed and merged by next Wednesday, October 12 (see #548).

Feedback requested

Module proposal: Server-Timing API

@flixos90

  • @rickjames: For server-side performance measurement, MySQLMySQL MySQL is a relational database management system. A database is a structured collection of data where content, configuration and other options are stored. https://www.mysql.com/.’s “slowlog” can be useful
  • @flixos90: Not familiar with that tool, but worth exploring another time and feel free to draft a proposal. The current proposal leaves the actual measurement agnostic so it would leave room to introduce a more flexible and opinionated system later.
  • @adamsilverstein: Overall love the proposal, are you proposing that this would be included in the response by default once this is added?
    • @flixos90: Yes, envision that it would be added by default
  • @johnbillion: Added a comment on the issue about headers: headers need to be sent before any output, and a lot of processing that happens in WordPress that would ideally be measured occurs after the output begins
    • @flixos90: Definitely a fair point. Even with that limitation, still a lot of benefit to having the headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. to measure everything until WP begins to render the output. This will be a known limitation eventually, but also think this will become a smaller issue with FSE sites because they typically generate all content and then it is just “printed” out, so less “work” happening after headers are sent.
    • @johnbillion: Maybe, but <head> still gets filled up by plugins and core doing processing. Would be good to think of what metrics would be useful to see and whether exposing those metrics via this APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. makes sense.
    • @flixos90: One example would be the autoloaded options query given the recent module proposal to improve that
    • @johnbillion: Does FSE actually construct its output before it’s all sent?
      • @aristath: Yes, the whole content/template gets rendered internally prior to sending any headers
    • @johnbillion: Like the idea of using the Server-Timing API header, but not sure if it necessarily works for WP
    • @flixos90: Isn’t it worth pursuing to be able to cover anything that happens prior to page output, which is a lot?
    • @johnbillion: It could well be, but would be good to see real world examples of what would be good to measure. Output buffering may not be the worst idea if the API is restricted to the plugin; definitely worth investigating.
    • @flixos90 will think about examples

Open floor

  • @aristath: Started porting SQLite as a module: https://github.com/WordPress/performance/pull/547; will discuss further next week
  • @josklever: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/55344 is related to the performance of the WP dashboard. Resources are loaded for dashboard widgets that are disabled via Screen Options, which can cause unwanted delays or issues for other widgets if there are conflicts.

Our next chat will be held on Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at 11am EDT in the #core-performance channel in Slack.

#core-js, #core-media, #performance, #performance-chat, #summary, #hosting-community

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