minified file question

[r_tist]

Hi,

Might be a silly question. If I upload the non-minified file along with the .min file and the .min file is the one called into the index file... there will be no negative effect on site load time? Is that right? Just to have the non-min file stored within the web server to make it easier to make edits? (so they are not only stored side-by-side locally, but also remotely on the web server)

I just want to verify and see if that is what people usually do? (best practice)

Thank you.

[Jon Fritz]

Unless you also link to the non-minified file within your page, that file will never be part of a download.

You could have folders filled with GBs of image files stored on your server, unless you link to them within your pages, they're not going to slow your site down.

[osgood_ · Accepted solution]

r_tist  wrote

Hi,

Might be a silly question. If I upload the non-minified file along with the .min file and the .min file is the one called into the index file... there will be no negative effect on site load time? Is that right? Just to have the non-min file stored within the web server to make it easier to make edits? (so they are not only stored side-by-side locally, but also remotely on the web server)

I just want to verify and see if that is what people usually do? (best practice)

Thank you.

Personally I don't minify any files these days. Unless your website is predominately being viewed by people living in the out-back in my opinion it makes little difference to performance.

I actually do not like keeping what are effectively duplicate files, one build file and one deployment file, its just too much managment when it really doesnt matter. Yes its trendy these days but really unecessary, in most cases.

But to answer your question. If you want to give yourself uneccessary work and management issues you could use the workflow as you describe without any effect on site load time.

[ALsp]

I agree with Osgood, and more...

There is absolutely no need to minify HTML pages. And minifying JavaScript and CSS files hardly matters and might save you several milliseconds, while making asset management for you more complicated.

[Nancy OShea]

I use minified libraries like jQuery, jQuery UI and Bootstrap.  But I don't keep non-miniifed versions because I never edit those files.   For all the rest, I use server-side GZIPPING. 

The Difference Between Minification and Gzipping | CSS-Tricks