Google To Pay JavaScript Frameworks To Implement Performance-First Code

An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet:
Google will be launching a fund of $200,000 to sponsor the development and implementation of performance-related features in third-party JavaScript frameworks... Frameworks with original ideas to improve performance and those which ship 'on by default' performance-boosting features will be favored in the funds allocation process. Nicole Sullivan, Chrome Product Manager, and Malte Ubl, Google Engineering Lead, have told ZDNet that the popularity, size, or the adoption of any participant framework will not count as a defining factor for being selected to receive funding. 'The objective of this initiative is to help developers hit performance goals and hence serve their users with high-quality user experiences by default and ensure that this happens at scale,' the two told ZDNet in an email...
'One key factor is also whether the respective feature can be turned on by default and thus have maximum impact rather than being only made available optionally,' Sullivan and Ubl said.... 'We want developers to be creative in approaching and solving the performance problem on the web but at a high-level we'll be looking at features that directly impact loading performance (e.g. use of feature policies, smart bundling, code-splitting, differential serving) and runtime performance (e.g. breaking tasks into smaller, schedulable chunks & keeping fps high)....'

But in addition to putting up funds to help frameworks improve their codebase, Google has also invited the development teams some of these frameworks to provide feedback in a more prominent role as part of the Google Chrome development process... 'Frameworks sometimes make web apps slower. They are also our best hope to make it faster,' a slide in Sullivan and Ubl's Chrome Dev Summit presentation read.

'It's still JavaScript,' complains long-time Slashdot reader tepples. 'The fastest script is the script that is not loaded at all.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.