← Back to Topics

JavaScript Minification

The cluster centers on discussions about minifying JavaScript code, including its purpose, performance benefits, drawbacks like readability loss, alternatives such as gzip, and tools like Closure Compiler.

📉 Falling 0.3x Web Development
2,875
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#150
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
3
2008
14
2009
65
2010
88
2011
151
2012
245
2013
217
2014
171
2015
253
2016
220
2017
333
2018
134
2019
119
2020
122
2021
186
2022
129
2023
177
2024
152
2025
94
2026
2

Top Contributors

cromwellian (17) skybrian (12) lifthrasiir (11) lobster_johnson (10) ricardobeat (10)

Keywords

ClojureScript OP JS AST CSS stripe.com JavaScript YUI github.com MyLongClassName js javascript ast code gzip compiled file readable file format shaking

Sample Comments

paxys • Dec 12, 2024 • View on HN

What's the point of minifying code that is anyways going to be compiled?

Veuxdo • Nov 22, 2023 • View on HN

Think of the lives lost to javascript minification.

manigandham • Dec 19, 2017 • View on HN

Then it's no different than minimized javascript...

carterehsmith • Mar 10, 2020 • View on HN

That's what minifiers/uglifiers do? Perhaps OP did not want to use them.

birdyrooster • Jul 21, 2020 • View on HN

I wonder how much more from javascript minifying can be reused in this space.

m4rtink • Nov 22, 2023 • View on HN

Doesn't gzip compression & source maps take care of this withou the abomination that is minification ?

kevingadd • Mar 6, 2024 • View on HN

JS minification will probably never die, because it makes parsing meaningfully faster.

arcatek • Jun 20, 2016 • View on HN

It's probably not so much a minifier than an obfuscator.

jffry • Nov 8, 2013 • View on HN

It's not like you couldn't ensure that it got minified away or anything...

pintxo • Oct 10, 2019 • View on HN

Don't js compressors do this sort of optimization on their own?