Why is minification important?

Also called minimization, minification is the procedure to remove all the unimportant characters from the JavaScript source codes without affecting its function. It involves the elimination of whitespace, semi-colons, comments as well as inclusion of shorter variable names and functions. Minification of JavaScript calls for a short and compact file size so that its loading time is reduced.

What makes minification different from uglification, encryption, compression as well as obfuscation?

Uglification– It is more or less same as minification. Uglify JS is also used to minify JavaScript files. In order to uglify a JavaScript file, you need to minify it with the help of Uglify. It helps in the enhancement of the overall performance of the website and lowers readability.

Encryption: It is the procedure to translate data, i.e. simple data to encoded form. The encoded data is also call cipher text. There is a specific secret key to decrypt it. It is difficult for the browser to run encrypted code. Encryption is a safety spec and doesn’t really shorten the file size.

Obfuscation: This procedure is used to keep business logic away from the eyes of people. The code makes it unreadable by human beings. Hence, reverse engineering is tough. Obfuscation isn’t the same as encryption as in that your computer can still understand and run the code. You can get your file obfuscated by change the variable names, members as well as functions. The resulting fall in the file size enhance the performance of the site, however it is not the major objective of obfuscation.

Compression: Data compression is the procedure to lower the number of bits required for the representation of data. It can free up some good amount of space on your hard drive and boost the speed of file transfer and lower costs for network bandwidth. Some files such as MS word files can be compressed as low as 90% of their genuine size.

Why isn’t minified code written by developers?

Minification helps in compacting files which makes its online performance better. So, why don’t developers write code which is minified from before?

JavaScript is written by human who require proper formatting, use of whitespace and comments to understand the program and debug the code as and when needed. After the code is written, you can use minifying software to enhance the performance of the site. It is because the web browser runs codes without understanding.

In order to minify JavaScript files, white space and comments are moved and some variable names are edited. It minimizes the code and lowers the file size. The minified version renders same functionality but reduces the bandwidth of network requests.

Nowadays minification has become a common practice for better page optimization. All the important developers of JavaScript library (AngularJS, JQuery or bootstrap) offer minified results of their file for deployment. It is denoted with min.js extension.

If you want to know how to minify Javascript, then use Who Ranks For to compress the files without spending a single penny within a minute.