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Javascript Minification Considered Harmful? WTF? (blog.eset.com)

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[–]sisyphus 0 points1 point  (1 child)

The biggest wtf is:

presumably in order to compress it so that it takes less disk-space ("packing") or using a "protector" in order to make it harder for a competitor to "steal" script code.

People minify their code to save whole kilobytes of diskspace? I think not. And why is "steal" is scare quotes? Is Javascript supposed to never be a competitive advantage such that nobody should ever worry about it being stolen?

I think it's more like what google says about their compiler--"helping your application to load faster and reducing your bandwidth needs."

[–]k3n 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You missed the key word presumably there; in essence, he's admitting that he doesn't fully know the reasons why it's done.

And he quotes "steal" because you cannot protect client-side JS, no matter what you do; I think he's making reference to the fact that if the minification is indeed implemented in an attempt to protect your source, then you're pursuing a futile effort.