What is Minification?
Removing unnecessary characters from code, like whitespace and comments, to reduce file size.
Why It Matters
Minified files are smaller, which means they download faster and your pages load more quickly.
Real-World Example
A 100KB JavaScript file reduced to 40KB after removing whitespace, comments, and shortening variable names.
“Understanding terms like Minification matters because it helps you have better conversations with developers and make smarter decisions about your software. You do not need to be technical. You just need to know enough to ask the right questions.”
Related Terms
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Related Terms
Build
The process of converting your source code into the optimised version that runs in production
Bundler
A tool that combines your many source files into optimised bundles that browsers can load efficiently.
Tree Shaking
Automatically removing unused code from your final bundle to make it smaller.
Cache
A temporary storage that keeps copies of frequently accessed data for faster retrieval
CDN
A network of servers around the world that stores copies of your content closer to users
Throttling
Slowing down requests instead of blocking them entirely when limits are approached