#ASKTHEINDUSTRY 03: What is PRPL and why does it matter?

At the Google I/O last May 2016, a new shiny acronym made the stage: it’s PRPL, a technique, or rather a collection of techniques, that should help developers hit those unmerciful performance budgets a great user experience requires.

So, here we are again with another acronym. PRPL indeed is one of those, whose goal is to help us recalling the 4 magic techniques that make the impossible possible. Here they come:

• Push critical resources for the initial route (with HTTP2 push feature)
• Render the bare minimum necessary to make your app useful and interactive. We’re not talking a splash screen here, it’s the actual interactive content the user came for.
• Pre-cache assets for the following routes via the Service Worker cache
• Lazy load the following routes from the SW cache upon navigation

It may not sound like a big deal, but it does all the difference. Not convinced? Take a look at these ones:

• The blazing fast Shop app by the Polymer Team
• A deep dive on the PRPL pattern by Addy Osmani

This piece is part of the #ASKTHEINDUSTRY project, a series of daily conversations with the Web Dev industry. You ask, I’ll answer, or find someone who can.