I read earlier today that Yahoo released YSlow 2 (beta2) and I decided to give it a try.
I’ve been a big fan of the Firebug plugin, and so far I’m impressed with the improvements. I suppose time will tell (I’ve been using it for about an hour now), but I like the new UI. More importantly, the changes in their website grading scale seem to be worth while. YSlow now offers developers to select “Small Site of Blog” as an option when grading – a feature which makes the grade much more relevant in such cases.
However, I did notice that YSlow grades on an A thru F basis, including grade E (as in better than F, worse than D). I’m not sure what schools the Yahoo developers graduated from, but I’ve never had a teacher who gave Es. Odd, but I’m obviously nitpicking.
And while I do like the UI improvements, they seem to be better suited for when Firebug is a separate window rather than docked at the bottom of the browser. It’s a bit annoying to have to scroll constantly to read the output.
I haven’t read much about what else YSlow 2 will offer when it’s out of beta testing, but so far Yahoo has done an excellent job. It’s long overdue.
About Arthur Kay 
