[unshift]

that question is a bit of a turn-off to me. obviously "benchmark it, see what's slowest, and make it faster" is a correct answer, and so is a 40 page essay about browser rendering, minification, full page caching, fragment caching, AJAX, etc. have you tried anything more specific?

[ericb]

If you have examples of more specific questions, I'm glad to hear them. I would accept either of your answers, btw. Answers I have seen include "It is always SQL" and "make it ajax--ajax is fast."

The purpose is just to verify that they can put some ideas into writing, have a mental framework for debugging in place, and can verbally demonstrate any sort of familiarity with the technologies involved. It isn't a gotcha-type question that expects a specific answer.

edit: That said, your feedback is good and I will amend it to give more of an idea of how long a response is desirable.

[ahi]

To be fair, it almost always is SQL and ajax is a decent way to hide unavoidable performance problems when everything else fails. Point taken though.

[rmc]

Answers I have seen include "It is always SQL" and "make it ajax--ajax is fast."

Haha, I see what you mean, that is a wordy FizzBuzz