When site speed metrics make you do something silly

A few weeks ago I moved my blog from a static site at baty.net into WordPress at baty.blog. I don’t know how it’ll all turn out but that’s where we are now.

My page speed scores dropped considerably after moving to WordPress but it’s a sacrifice I’ll make for the convenience and interop of a dynamic site.

I got to wondering how high I could get my speed score on the old static site. I believe that watching any metric too closely is dangerous and can lead to all sorts of poor decisions. “Getting the numbers up” at all costs is an attitude best avoided.

Ignoring my own advice, I made a new, super-minimal Hugo theme just to see what effect it had on the speed tests. The theme is based on and is the simplest possible thing, within reason. I added minor styles to a couple of things just so it was ever-so-slightly easier to look at and read. Here it is.

It may have been a silly and unnecessary thing to do, but it worked. Here’s the new score…