February 2017 Summaries

Netlify is a platform that helps deliver web content quickly, using the JAMstack and intelligent content caching. They implement caching in three major places on the web: the browser, Content Delivery Networks (CDN), and proxies. Netlify uses specific HTTP headers to control caching, such as `max-age` for how long content can be cached and `etag` for versioning files. Their implementation of cache invalidation is designed to support atomic deploys and rollbacks, allowing creators to quickly update their content without worrying about visitors seeing outdated versions. The use of a CDN and HTTP/2 enables fast check-ins with the browser, making this system efficient even when dealing with frequent changes.

Shifter is a serverless WordPress hosting solution that pre-renders and serves HTML files via CDN, aiming to improve the speed and security of WordPress sites.` `The concept was discussed in an episode of JAMstack Radio with Daniel Olson and Shinichi Nishikawa, who are both involved in WordPress development and review processes.` `Shifter is being explored as a new use case for serverless technology, offering potential benefits such as improved performance and enhanced security for WordPress sites.

We've processed over one hundred thousand deploys with custom header rules, but verifying their correctness was challenging until now. Two new improvements have been released to help users verify their header rules configuration: logging invalid rules in the deploy log and a new Header section in Netlify's Playground where users can paste their header rules file for immediate validation.

There is a recurring phenomenon on Hacker News where a website with excessive bloat is posted, often resulting in its rapid rise to the front page. Despite the developer community's long-standing discussion about bloat, it remains a significant issue, with average web pages now exceeding 2MB in size. The author argues that developers should take responsibility for creating faster and more efficient sites, not just when their clients or bosses dictate, but also as individuals learning to develop. They propose modern static sites built on the JAMstack as an accessible solution to beat back bloat, citing tools like Hugo, Hexo, and Jekyll that can significantly improve load times without requiring extensive debugging. The author shares data from Google and Amazon highlighting the impact of speed on revenue and user engagement, and encourages developers to adopt this approach for the benefit of users, businesses, and the entire web.

The latest episode of JAMstack Radio features a conversation between Phil Hawksworth, Technical Director at R/GA, and Eli Williamson, Creative Director at Netlify. They discuss isomorphic rendering in the JAMstack, highlighting its performance improvements. The discussion focuses on optimizing website performance by empowering frontend developers, utilizing static sites, and adopting server-less architectures. Phil's talk at JAMstackSF is also mentioned, which was given by Brian Douglas, Founder of OpenSauced.

The company recently experienced a serious incident caused by human error, resulting in the overwriting of metadata for 5.2% of their deploys, leading to downtime for affected sites and API failures. The team responded quickly, focusing on getting paying customers back online first, while also working on restoring deploy metadata from backups and fixing API serialization errors. They implemented several measures to prevent similar incidents, including peer signoff for custom write queries, database snapshots before running write queries, and enforced auditing and reviews of database interface commands. To improve recovery, they plan to log more deploy metadata, update their internal documentation, and trigger rebuilds through a user-friendly interface.

There's no reason to have a massive, unwieldy CMS with a database or a fancy isomorphic monolith when you could have a fast, secure and beautiful static site. With the rise of JavaScript tooling like Grunt, Gulp, Webpack, and Continuous Deployment through Git, building functional sites and web-apps that bundle into deployable static files has become more accessible. Static sites offer numerous benefits including security, speed, flexibility, smaller footprint, reliability, developer experience, and scalability. By hosting a static site on a CDN, users can enjoy faster page loads, reduced latency, and increased availability. With the ability to focus on development rather than managing a CMS, developers can streamline their workflow and allocate resources more efficiently. The modern web development environment has made it easier than ever to take advantage of the speed, security, and reliability of static web generators.