{"id":21840,"date":"2019-02-06T18:34:32","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T18:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/a_chaotic_good_guide_to_image_performance_part_1"},"modified":"2022-02-25T20:29:54","modified_gmt":"2022-02-25T20:29:54","slug":"a_chaotic_good_guide_to_image_performance_part_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/a_chaotic_good_guide_to_image_performance_part_1","title":{"rendered":"A Chaotic Good Guide to Image Performance, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve spent a lot<\/em> of time thinking about the rules of putting images on the web<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For such a flexible medium as the web, software development can feel like a painstaking, rules-oriented game\u2014an errant comma might break a build, a missing semicolon might wipe out an entire page. For a long time, the laws of image rendering seemed similarly cut-and-dry: For example, if your markups contained an img<\/code> element , the singular content of its src<\/code> attribute would be foisted on the audience regardless of their browsing context, period.<\/p>\n

Likewise, I\u2019ve been mulling long and hard over the seemingly carved-in-stone rules of the web standards-process. I had to, thanks to my role as chairman of the Responsive Issues Community Group, the private radio web-standards body that brought you the picture<\/code> element and srcset<\/code> and sizes<\/code> attributes. After all, we had to know all the rules to, well, find creative ways to work around bureaucratic constraints. For one thing, we weren\u2019t allowed to publish a spec in the first place. We certainly weren\u2019t allowed to change the HTML spec itself though we ended up doing that nonetheless.<\/p>\n

We were, I\u2019m proud to say, a chaotic good web-standards group.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong>

A chaotic good character does what is necessary to bring about change for the better, disdains bureaucratic organizations that get in the way of social improvement, and places a high value on personal freedom, not only for oneself, but for others as well.\n\u2014 Alignment (Dungeons & Dragons), Wikipedia<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

The short version is that there\u2019s the law<\/em>\u2014the process, the paperwork, the rules, the way we\u2019re supposed to do things<\/em>\u2014and then there\u2019s doing the right thing<\/em>. In cases where the two align, all\u2019s well with the world. If the law comes at the expense of doing the right thing, however, a chaotic good character or, say, a chaotic good web-standards group, would unhesitatingly deviate from the letter of the law.<\/p>\n

We felt justified in this philosophy, considering \u201cthe closest thing web standards have to a golden rule<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong>

In case of conflict, consider users over authors over implementors over specifiers over theoretical purity.<\/p><\/div>\n