What you need for this book

The most important prerequisite you must have before reading this book is the kind of courage that enables you to get away with murder when you are inside a management system.

A test subject for testing and optimization is of course required, and it will be a plus if the reader is accustomed to the technical backend console; but it's not necessary.

In order to follow the optimizations present in this book, you will need a copy of your actual website or a fresh installation of the Magento Community Edition with the sample data. Of course, you can apply these optimizations on your live websites, but at your own risk. Indeed, beginning such optimizations can (always) create some mess.