Confessions Of The Professions Is All About Speed Through HTML
June 21, 2015 – Confessions of the Professions recently switched from the PHP platform to HHVM this past month, with speed tests showing an average load time of 0.7 seconds to 1.8 seconds. We dropped our regular caching system, as there were some browser-compatibility issues, though the drop showed absolutely no change regardless of whether the cache system was implemented or not. We are still always looking for ways to improve our speed when we got an idea: Why not test PHP and HHVM against HTML. HTML won every time, as there are no databases that it needs to connect with and is instantly fast on its own, without Javascript or JQuery scripts slowing it down.
We decided to do some research to see what other tests were being done on HTML and PHP websites. The results were amazing and confirmed what we already knew. HTML is faster on every level. Check out the load time of static HTML and dynamic PHP pages. When pitted against each other with the same amount of requests to scripts and other websites, HTML was over 200 times faster than PHP. Though no direct research or tests have been done yet on it, as far as we know, it does seem that HHVM is almost as fast as HTML in a speed comparison, though HTML may still have a slight advantage.
If a large amount of visitors are visiting an un-cached dynamic PHP page, the page must send requests to the database each time someone connects. With a cache system in place, the page must still send some requests to the database, but far fewer requests, resulting in some time delay for the page to load. When a large number of visitors visit a static HTML page with no requests to the database, the page will load instantly for all visitors. The response time for both PHP and HTML still depend largely on the webserver itself and how quickly it is able to connect, receive, and send back the request to the visitor computer.
While we cannot turn the entire website into HTML, we have set up a system that creates a static HTML cache page each time a visitor lands on a page for up to 24 hours. For those who wish to visit the HTML pages, they are located on the Menu under Confessions » Archive » HTML Cache. Not all pages are yet listed but will become available each time a visitor lands on the page, or the page is updated. The HTML page is dynamically generated from a copy of the PHP page, but does not look exactly like the original page.
We trimmed the fat off the page and removed everything from a database connection, css, javascript, jquery, including related articles and comments, and left only the essential HTML code. Pages should load in an instant without delay. At this current time, visitors cannot get from one page to another without returning back to the main website. A link to the HTML page is available at the bottom of every page for those who wish to view the HTML version instead.
Visitors who are not so concerned with visuals, but wish to experience speed may benefit more from this feature than those who may not care much about speed and are concerned with the visual experience of reading articles. We hope this feature improves your user experience. Please enjoy our new HTML Cache system.
If you experience any issues with an HTML page, please contact us and let us know!
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