[wp-hackers] Adding A CSS Loader

[Charles]

I'm also of the mind that combining static CSS files has little benefit.

However, there is something that could be done in WordPress to improve
overall load performance, and it'd be useful not only for CSS files but all
of the other files that a page depends on.

Browsers normally download no more than two files in parallel.  If WordPress
could provide an option to allow users to enter a hostname alias and use it
intelligently -- i.e. alternating between the "real" hostname and the
hostname alias for alternative files, or maybe just by filetype (.html from
the hostname, .css files from the alias, image files from the hostname, .js
from the alias) -- the browser could load four files in parallel.  That
would speed up real-world load times for WordPress around 25%, per the study
cited below.

For example, my blog is on someblog.com.  Let me specify 88mph.someblog.com
as a domain alias under Options.  A first, simple implementation would use
the alias for CSS and JS, and continue to use the normal hostname for
images.

http://yuiblog.com/blog/2007/04/11/performance-research-part-4/

-- Charles