If we are talking about throw-away project you are right.
If we are talking about regular web site you are very wrong.
80-90% time of user waiting for the page to load is spent client side waiting till all resources are ready.
I'd recommend exactly the same things M1573RMU74710N did. If you want performant web site you should minimize the number of HTTP requests (hence concatenating .js and .css files, using image sprites and setting expires and cache-control headers to avoid 304 Not Modified), make sure that resources don't block while loading (hence move JS to the bottom), make sure resources are small (hence image optimization and gzipping).
This should not be "best-practices" these should be "that's-how-things-are-done".
And the guy's page is an application for the front-end engineer positions — if I were him I'd make sure that my application page shows my best skills.
I'd recommend exactly the same things M1573RMU74710N did. If you want performant web site you should minimize the number of HTTP requests (hence concatenating .js and .css files, using image sprites and setting expires and cache-control headers to avoid 304 Not Modified), make sure that resources don't block while loading (hence move JS to the bottom), make sure resources are small (hence image optimization and gzipping).
This should not be "best-practices" these should be "that's-how-things-are-done". And the guy's page is an application for the front-end engineer positions — if I were him I'd make sure that my application page shows my best skills.