Javascript minifiers

Marc Clifton

So I just tried 4 minifiers. Here are the results: [https://javascript-minifier.com/\](https://javascript-minifier.com/) Fails on class Helpers { [https://jscompress.com/\](https://jscompress.com/) Fails on class Helpers { [https://www.minifier.org/\](https://www.minifier.org/) Worked!!! Input was 81K, minimized is 46K. NUglify: [https://github.com/xoofx/NUglify\](https://github.com/xoofx/NUglify) Fails. Produced: Object.entries(t).map([n,t]=>i.setAttributeNS(null,n,t)) Note [n,t] needs to be ([n,t]) Too bad about NUglify. It produced a 37K minified file. 3 out of 4 failed. :sigh:

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Tim Carmichael

Having never heard of a 'minifer', I followed the link that you said worked; OK, I understand what they are now. The next question is: does the page/site load noticeably faster when using the 'minifer'ed version? If so, what percent increase was seen?

Lost User

So you have about (46K-37K)/2 times something like ...map(([n,t])=>.... ? :)

It does not solve my Problem, but it answers my question

Marc Clifton

Tim Carmichael wrote:

The next question is: does the page/site load noticeably faster when using the 'minifer'ed version?

Yes -- keep in mind not everyone is on highspeed internet, so minifying the javascript your website references can result in a 50% speed improvement on loading. Potentially more if you're on a satellite connection where the round trip ACK for each TCP/IP packet (typical [MTU](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2613734/maximum-packet-size-for-a-tcp-connection) of 1500 bytes) can be time consuming, though having simulated such stuff, I would imagine that a satellite "router" attempts to deal with this by not using TCP/IP directly over the satellite, where every 1500 byte packet requires an ACK. Basically, minifying Javascript is a quite simple method of improving website performance regardless of the connection quality. It also makes the javascript harder to read by would-be hackers or the just plain curious. Obviously one wouldn't do this during development!

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Marc Clifton

0x01AA wrote:

So you have about (46K-37K)/2 times something like

It did make me wonder, but no, I don't. :laugh:

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ZurdoDev

Weird. I believe we use the Microsoft one and it runs post build. Never had a problem with it and have been using it for 8 years.

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Tim Carmichael

Thank you; I can see where it would be beneficial. I've largely spent my career in the local world and largely avoiding web development. Now, if there was some way to compile it... but that is a whole other barrel of fish.

RJOberg

Marc Clifton wrote:

It also makes the javascript harder to read by would-be hackers or the just plain curious.

Not so much anymore, Chrome has the ability to pretty print JavaScript and CSS now. Plus unminifier tools are freely available out there too. Accidentally minified my source JS file once... yay for unminifiers.

dandy72

Tim Carmichael wrote:

if there was some way to compile it...

Isn't that what WebAssembly is all about? (and now, being aware of that name's existence, you know as much about WebAssembly as I do)

Sander Rossel

That's why I write my code uglified and minified to begin with ;p

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Nathan Minier

Yes, that is exactly what WASM is all about. MDN has done its usual due diligence and added several sections about it: [WebAssembly | MDN](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly)

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Nathan Minier

Plus it's fun to watch co-worker eyes cross, I imagine.

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grumpy_nl

2Ahosting in combi with cloudflare will minifie your scripts by default

Lost User

What is the actual size being transmitted? Since web traffic is / can be compressed by default, is it worth doing "minify" explicitly? (i.e. is it redundant when considering compression).

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Marc Clifton

Zipping the raw js vs. the minified js resulted in 17K and 9K respectively, so even if the web traffic is compressed, it's still ~50% reduction. At least, in my one little test!

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Lost User

Nice. Thanks for the info (and your testing)!

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thewazz

i've used this no-name compressor: JSCompressor[^]. i think it's pretty old and i don't have complex js. i don't know how it will work with modern/latest js.