In this meeting, the State Changers conducted a deep dive into understanding website behavior, concentrating on the information that can be gleaned from the developer's console, network tab, and the website's elements. They discussed the insights gained by observing the loading of data, analyzing the HTML elements of a site, and taking note of the loaded JavaScript.
Key insights include the understanding of differences between marketing sites, which typically have copious amounts of HTML, and web applications, which have minimal HTML but load more data through JavaScript. The State Changers also highlighted how they investigate the performance of a website by observing the sequence and duration of loading items, which can provide clues about site speed issues. They emphasized the importance of identifying both slow-loading items and those that constitute a large part of the loaded data. The group demonstrated how to work with script tags, JSON data embedded within the HTML page, and how these elements are used in some web applications. The State Changers used an example of reverse engineering an application, demonstrating how the page source was beneficial in figuring out the location of a transcript. The session emphasized the importance of understanding the interplay between HTML, JavaScript, and network loads to troubleshoot performance, structure, and behavior of a web application effectively. This knowledge contributes to successful integrations that significantly enhance the functionality of their applications.
(Source: Deep Dive - Browser Devtools 7/19/23 )
