Dossiers
- Web PerformanceACTIVE
The Hidden Cost of JavaScript
Transfer size is the cheapest part of shipping JavaScript. This dossier separates the four costs a script imposes, network, parse, compile, execute, and shows why the last three dominate on the devices most people actually own.
- Field
- Web Performance
- Experiments
- 14
- Observations
- 27
- Browser RenderingACTIVE
Compositing and the Layer Economy
Compositor layers make animation cheap and memory expensive. This dossier documents what promotes an element to its own layer, what that buys, and where the practice of promoting everything goes wrong.
- Field
- Browser Rendering
- Experiments
- 9
- Observations
- 18
- UI ArchitectureUNDER REVIEW
Fiber and the Interruptible Render
Why React rewrote its reconciler around a linked list of units of work, what 'interruptible' actually means on a single thread, and which user-visible behaviours fall out of that decision.
- Field
- UI Architecture
- Experiments
- 6
- Observations
- 11
- Browser SecurityACTIVE
The Boundary That Holds the Web Together
The same-origin policy is the oldest load-bearing rule on the platform, and almost every security feature added since exists either to relax it safely or to patch a place where it leaked. This dossier traces what it protects, what it never protected, and why so much of modern web security is a negotiation around one boundary.
- Field
- Browser Security
- Experiments
- 8
- Observations
- 21
- Applied ComplexityACTIVE
Cost Models for Interface Work
Big-O answers how cost grows, which is rarely the question a frontend engineer is actually asking. This dossier assembles the cost models that predict interface performance: per-frame budgets, allocation pressure, DOM size, and the constant factors that decide which algorithm wins at the sizes real applications use.
- Field
- Applied Complexity
- Experiments
- 11
- Observations
- 19
Standard of evidence
- Documented fact
- Stated in a specification, an engine's documentation, or reproducible in every major browser.
- Simplified model
- A teaching abstraction. Directionally correct, deliberately incomplete, and labelled as such.
- Interpretation
- The institute's reading of the evidence. Reasonable engineers may disagree, and sometimes do.