Jordan Griffin
VP Engineering Request Metrics
Optimizing Static HTML And Images With Webpack
Webpack is great for building JavaScript applications, but did you know it can optimize static HTML assets too? In this article, we use Webpack to process HT...
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Fast Inline Images With React and Webpack
Webpack is great for building React applications, but did you know it can help you optimize app performance too? Webpack can automatically inline image data,...
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Using HTTP Caching
The fastest website is the website that is already loaded, and that’s exactly what we can do with HTTP caching. HTTP caching lets web browsers reuse of previ...
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Advertising's Performance Tradeoffs
Advertising is everywhere on the web and users have noticed. More than 40% of internet users block ads. Are these users sticking it to the man or just tired ...
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Using First Contentful Paint (FCP)
First Contentful Paint, or FCP, measures the time take to render the first element of a webpage. It’s a modern, user-centric measurement of how fast users s...
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Measuring First Input Delay (FID)
First Input Delay (FID) measures how long the browser took to respond to the first user input event. It’s one of several Core Web Vital metrics that measure ...
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Fastest News: Best Performing News Website
News teams often compete to break the story first. We think they should also compete on being the first to load their website. Let’s apply our web performanc...
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Breaking Out of Webpack Based Build Chains
JavaScript build chains have gotten outrageously complicated. Let’s create one that isn’t. Request Metrics monitors how real users experience the performance...
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Episode 17: User Sign Up and Simple Access Control
Users can’t actually sign up for an account. Today we fix that. Request Metrics won’t be very successful if users can’t sign up! We recently completed cookie...
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Episode 16: Using Redis for Distributed User Sessions in ASP.NET Core
We need distributed session state because load balancing with sticky sessions is whack. Spoiler: We DON’T roll it ourselves. ASP.NET session storage is usefu...
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Episode 15: Simple Cookie Based Authentication in ASP.NET Core
ASP.Net Core Identity is too magical. Will rolling authentication ourselves finally catch up to us? There are as many ways to set up authentication as there ...
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Episode 14: Storing User Data In Redis
Redis only supports a handful of data types. Our data model has to fit within them. Are we crazy for trying this? It’s time to think about the data model for...
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Episode 13: Testing In .NET Core Using NUnit
Testing framework arguments are almost as bad as tabs vs spaces. We’ve definitely picked the right one though. We’re professionals. We’ve started writing app...
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Episode 12: Tweaking Systemd Services With Ansible
We thought we were done with infrastructure work. We were wrong. Just as we’ve started work on application code, it turns out our server configuration needs ...
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Episode 11: Connecting to Redis in .NET Core 3.1
We’ve finally finished screwing around with basic groundwork. Today we start writing actually useful application code! First, can we connect to Redis? Now we...
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Episode 10: Installing Redis Using An Ansible Galaxy Role
A pre-built playbook from Ansible Galaxy lets us easily install Redis. (Even we don’t re-invent the wheel every time.) The Request Metrics application will u...
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Episode 9: Running ASP.NET Core Applications Using Systemd and Ansible
A web application isn’t much use if it isn’t running. We’ll hand in our neckbeard cards and copy+paste our way out of the problem. Last episode, we configure...
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Episode 8: Using Ansible to Configure NGINX for ASP.NET Core
It’s best practice for ASP.NET Core applications to have a “real” webserver in front of them. We’ll configure NGINX for the job using Ansible. We don’t hate ...
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Episode 7: Using Ansible Roles for Common Linux Settings
Being Linux, some tweaks are needed right out of the box. Since we aren’t proper neckbeards we rely on Ansible to ensure we get them right for each new machi...
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Episode 6: Buying an SSL Certificate
How to buy a wildcard SSL certificate like grumpy old men. How to buy a wildcard SSL certificate like grumpy old men. While there are other options like Let’...
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Episode 5: Let's Encrypt? Let's Not.
We need a SSL certificate for our new site. Let’s Encrypt makes it easy, right? Actually, it’s complicated. SSL support is table stakes for any modern websit...
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Episode 4: Deploying Code to Linux From TeamCity
We setup TeamCity to deploy the latest build to Linux using SSH. TeamCity is so slick, it can make anyone look like a wizard. Even us! We’re ready to deploy ...
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Episode 3.5: Basic Ansible With SSH Keys
We finally use our new SSH key to provision our Linux dev server with Ansible. Witness the “Hello World” of Ansible setups. Now that we have a SSH key, we ca...
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Episode 3: SSH Keys For Server Authentication
We create a new SSH key to use for authentication to a Linux dev server. We’re rather unhip so we do it all from Windows. In the previous video, we created a...
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Episode 2: Building the Code
We set up a repeatable CI build for our new .NET Core project so we can pretend we’re professionals. We’re old and crotchety though so we still use TeamCity ...
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Episode 1: File->New Project
Every journey begins with a single step. We wade through the myriad options of creating a new .NET Core project in 2020. We just make it look harder than it ...
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Episode 0: Introducing Request Metrics!
Announcing Request Metrics, a new tool from the team who built TrackJS. Request Metrics is a web performance tool that records how fast your production Page ...
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