Drupal is slow. All of us know. But as they say humans have a tendency to aim for better and when we are better, aim for excellence. So out of human tendency while searching for improving the scope of performance, I came across few points which needs to be taken care of while developing a new Drupal site.
Ten commandments
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Enable caching and aggregation for css and js. Include css in head and js in bottom of template file.
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Never write heavy code in tpl files. Template files are only for rendering html, not for heavy DB queries and complex php code.
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Don’t use php filter in custom block. Use hook_block () for custom blocks.
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Minimize HTTP Requests. This has great impact on performance. Use image sprite OR data-uri’s for images.
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Some useful module are performance killer like admin_menu, devel, context_ui, views_ui. So uninstall them on production site.
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Use long expire header in htaccess. eg.
ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 2 month"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 2 month"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 2 years"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 2 years"
ExpiresDefault A2592000-
Some of these tools could be useful. Varnish, APC, mysql-tunner.
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Maria db is way faster than mysql. Drupal.org is using this.
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And If you have extra money, you can use CDN (Content Delivery Network).
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If you are dealing with huge drupal site, you must take a look at this video