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For the next JS13k game jam I want to use some cute pixel fonts. I have always liked them and the retro aura they bring. From previous experience I know when game jam time comes in, the one thing you don’t have is time. Therefore, in an effort to be ready for it, I went… Read more: An unnecessary but satisfying optimization

As its name suggests, the JS13k game jam is about writing a game in Javascript sized under 13kb when zipped. This jam is the little brother of the gamedev.js game jam but I like it a whole lot more since the size restriction makes the game more “pure”. The former allows for web exports (from… Read more: Another JS13k jam: Lessons learned

If you don’t want to read the “intro” and go directly to the nuts and bolts, that’s ok. First of all, yes, this title is 100% stolen from this awesome post by Jaime Gonzalez. I read his post a couple of times in total awe of his 13 kbyte creation, and it inspired me to… Read more: How to Write a Game in Under 13 Kb While Taking Care of a Baby – REMIX

While many people think working from home is the best thing in the world, the recent Coronavirus apocalypse will teach them otherwise. WFH has many benefits but it also has plenty of downsides that may not seem apparent at first. Here is a quick guide on how to do it right. A couple of things… Read more: Work From Home – A Guide for the uninitiated

TLDR; I’m going to assume you use DFP because it is by far the most common, but the same concepts apply to all ad servers. Additionally, I’m assuming you are using the IMA SDK which is also the defacto way of doing ads with a few exceptions. If your site uses videos but you are… Read more: How to optimize video ad timeouts

Jetpack is awesome. Among many features, by default, it runs WordPress stats. While they are not Google Analytics by any means, they do give you a nice view on how your site is doing, with a very small footprint. The event code is just added to your site’s footer and voila! it just works! The problem… Read more: Adding pageviews to WordPress stats on galleries

Async JS is the way of the present (and future). We MUST load all of our scripts async. They are getting heavy and slow, and the browser needs help, specially on mobile devices. Why wouldn’t you want your page to load faster (see this post). As web pages grow more and more complex, the idea… Read more: Run javascript that depends on multiple remote assets

Speed is everything. It always is … there is no such thing as “the page loaded too fast”. To make matters worse, today we have Google Pagespeed Insights to make our lives miserable (a whole different topic). They usually recommend loading your JS asynchronous (async) or on the footer. Why? Javascript is render blocking, which means… Read more: How to make SYNC javascript assets work ASYNC

One of the challenges of running WordPress at scale is dealing with API calls to (insert_external_service_here). Using wp_remote_get (or curl) is probably your go-to method for API calling and this is a fine function for a low traffic site. On a site that gets millions of pageviews, it is just not going to cut it.… Read more: When caching is not enough: “Double Buffered” Remote Calls

TLDR; If you place your JS/jQuery below the elements, you don’t have to use $(document).ready.   Wrapping all your Javascript in a $(document).ready. All the cool kids are doing it, and it is safe to do so. However, this doesn’t come without drawbacks. Also, there multiple considerations when it comes to loading jQuery itself, but… Read more: To $(document).ready() or not to $(document).ready() ? that is the question.