Website code optimisation?

Cheetah Designs · 18 Dec 2010 at 15:30

Given its the advances in internet speed, do people still optimise their html/css/javascript to take up a minimal amount of space so that it loads faster? Like removing whitespace, tabs, keeping variable names short...

Eg this:

Code:

#id{color:#fff}

instead of:

Code:

#id
{
   color: #fff;
}

PaulM · 18 Dec 2010 at 15:48

I don't keep variable names short but I do (automatically) minify js/css before deploying a site.

Pho · 18 Dec 2010 at 15:56

For CSS I tend to prefer the second approach because it's easier to read. For JavaScript I'll minify libraries (i.e. jQuery plugins) but unless my own code is massive I'll leave it uncompressed for ease.

Besides, unless you've got massive JS/CSS files I doubt it would make a difference, especially if your server is gziping them before being sent to visitors and their browser is caching the files anyway.

fez · 18 Dec 2010 at 16:15

The difference it will make to the size of your css, javascript is so minimal on most sites compared to the savings that can be made elsewhere, that you will probably find that you just cause yourself more problems than its worth.

Cheetah Designs · 18 Dec 2010 at 16:18

What about HTML code. Do you take Google's approach and have it practically all on one line or do you split it up and tab it to make it look good?

Dj_Jestar · 18 Dec 2010 at 16:38

The reason Google have it all on one line is not to minify, it'll be because they don't write the markup directly and use a dom generator like everyone should

GravyMonster · 18 Dec 2010 at 20:02

Whitespace makes next to no difference to a text files size (literally just a few bytes), so it's always best to write in in the most readable way.

Randomface74 · 18 Dec 2010 at 20:06

I actually write my CSS condensed because I find it easier to work with as I can see a lot more rules on the screen at any one time.

CSS has never been large if used properly. It's only an issue if you have divitis.

Tetsujin · 19 Dec 2010 at 01:13

Pho said:
For CSS I tend to prefer the second approach because it's easier to read. For JavaScript I'll minify libraries (i.e. jQuery plugins) but unless my own code is massive I'll leave it uncompressed for ease.

Quoted For Ye Truth

In your example OP there's six bytes difference, but your example's very small. In the real world, there'll be many more characters per line, so the proportion that're newlines/tabs will be minimal.

Plus, I edit live, so if I minified before pushing live I'd not be able to do that.