Blog
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Scaling Is Capacity, Performance Is Efficiency
At the heart of the “we need to scale” idea sits a confusion that is a basic misunderstanding of what scalability actually does. Scalability does not make systems faster. It makes them endure more load. Performance, by contrast, determines how much work a system must do for a single request. These two concerns operate in
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Your Attention Is Leaking
We all know them. Friends, colleagues, maybe even family members whose phones light up constantly. Badges everywhere. Notifications stacked so high they have become visual noise. Unread emails, unreviewed Slack messages, app alerts, system prompts, settings that still need configuring. And almost always, the same response when you ask about it: “I don’t care. I just
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Lessons Learned, Course Building Edition
Over the years I’ve built plenty of courses in various forms, but they’ve all been quite small. More like tutorials with some screencasts. Building Make WordPress Fast, the first full course I’ve ever launched, and probably the most ambitious solo thing I’ve attempted in a while, has already taught me plenty. If you’ve ever thought
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We All Lose With Ad Hominem Arguments
Every community has its flare-ups, and WordPress is no exception. Big and small, you’ve seen them. One week we’re debating development practices, another week it’s page builders, and somewhere in between someone confidently declares that caching fixes everything (it does not, but here’s what does). These disagreements aren’t a problem. In fact, they’re healthy. They
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WordCamp Netherlands Felt Different
I just got back from WordCamp Netherlands, and as always, it was great to be there. Seeing familiar faces, catching up with people I’ve known for years, and meeting new folks who are contributing in their own ways reminded me why this community continues to matter. But this year carried a different weight. For the
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Your “Fast” Hosting Might Still Be the Problem
Often times when I’m doing performance reviews for WordPress sites, the topic of what’s fast WordPress hosting comes up. If I then learn their hosting is limited in a great many different ways, I suggest to look at hosting alternatives. I’m then regularly told, “I’m on good hosting, so it must be something else.” I
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The Ultimate WordPress Debugging Guide
Debugging WordPress doesn’t have to feel like chaos. When things break, slow down, or act strangely, there’s always a reason, and usually, a breadcrumb trail leading to it. This guide is your roadmap for finding those breadcrumbs. We’ll start with the easiest, safest steps anyone can follow, move into power-user techniques for people with server
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Stop Asking Which Plugins to Use
Last week I did a live stream with Kevin Geary about how to build blazingly fast WordPress sites. Today I’m going on a live stream with Rino de Boer to talk about performance as well. And as Rino announced it on X, someone replied there and said this: “Ask him which plug-ins to use and
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WDD Live with Kevin Geary on #WordPerf
I joined my friend Kevin Geary for one of his WDD live streams. We talked about the philosophy of performance (for WordPress) and how to make BLAZING FAST WordPress sites. We went into great detail on a great many of topics. We talked for 90 minutes, and the feedback has been incredibly positive. I mentioned
