To support the speed the on the NBTwiki, I have developed the smart cache plugin for dokuwiki.
The smart cache pluging enable better use of the browser cache for non-logged in users. The smart cache is ‘smart’, because it automatically refreshes the user’s browser cache if the wiki page has been updated. It also automatically refreshes if the user is logging in. All this is done using two every simple AJAX calls, and a client-side java script checking how fresh the cache is.
The first AJAX call checks if the page has been refreshed.
The second checks if the user is logged in.
On my not very fast conncetion the smart cache plugin improved the second load time of the www.nbtwiki.net frontpage from ~ 6 seconds to ~2.6 seconds (using Firebug). The two AJAX cache checks takes about ~200 ms, and ~1.2 seconds. The timing naturally depends on server load and network performance.
Here is an example video of the plugin in action:
Smartcache plugin : http://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:smartcache