Google recently designed a series of articles on helping developer to know how to improve the performance of their web application. It is a really good resources for every web developer.
Why do Google think it is so important that they have to build a dedicated page on this topic? I would say it is because web developer did not do their job well and lack the awareness and responsibility of building of good web application.
Honestly speaking, according to my experiences, most of web developers just know a little about web application or not knowing enough to realize how complicated a web application is. Actually there are too many things for a web developer to learn: CSS, HTML, HTTP, Caching, JavaScript, XML, Image types, SQL, Databases, REST… just list some important topics, but each of these topics can be very complicated depends on the scope of project.
For example, there are many settings in IIS to improve the performance by just clicking buttons like caching and recycling app pool, however many web administrator only use the default settings! Why? Because the default settings just works! So why bother to change those settings? Even they do change the settings, they still not know how it works or how it affected the HTTP header and the application.
In Taiwan, this is very common phenomenon because most of Taiwan’s biggest industries are focusing at hardwares, Software/IT/MIS are not as important as Factory/Sales/Marketing, its budget is always the first to be cut. I really hope this situation will be changed in the near future as Taiwan is much more suitable to develop seriously at Software Industries: comparing to other Asian countries, there are much better condition and greater chances for Taiwan to take lead in Chinese software market, especially Web 2.0.
Well, as long as Taiwan’s manufacturing industry keeps growing, this will be just a theory or dream of mine.