The Main Thread is Overworked & Underpaid
Surma·2019·Chrome Dev Summit·28 minSurma makes the case that the web is the only platform that still pretends threads do not exist — and shows how to move work off the main thread with workers.
Owning Your Performance: RAIL
Paul Irish·2015·Chrome Dev SummitPaul Irish demonstrates the RAIL model and walks through diagnosing real performance problems live in Chrome DevTools.
Rich Harris on frameworks, the web, and the edge
Rich Harris·2023·Svelte Society NYCHarris revisits the SPA-vs-MPA argument through the lens of edge runtimes — and pushes back on the idea that SSR-everywhere is a victory for users.
Have Single-Page Apps Ruined the Web?
Rich Harris·2021·Jamstack ConfRich Harris pushes back on the SPA-vs-MPA dichotomy and sketches transitional apps — server-rendered, JS-enhanced, and progressively interactive.
Rethinking Reactivity
Rich Harris·2019·You Gotta Love FrontendRich Harris introduces Svelte 3 and argues that reactivity belongs in the compiler, not the runtime — the talk that crystallised the case for disappearing frameworks.
In The Loop
Jake Archibald·2018·JSConfAsiaJake Archibald walks through the browser event loop — tasks, microtasks, requestAnimationFrame, and the surprising ways the runtime interleaves your work with rendering.
The Cost of JavaScript
Addy Osmani·2018·FluentAddy Osmani breaks down what shipping a megabyte of JavaScript actually costs on real devices — parse, compile, execute, and everything in between.