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Should I use minified or regular versions of jQuery plugins during development and deployment?

Answer 1

+3 A:

I tend to always use the minified versions of 3th party JSs unless I specifically need to look into it... In any case, you could write an html helper that inserts the correct script name based on some configuration (can be debug vs release)...

You would end up with something like:

<%= Html.IncludeJQuery() %>

or if all your scripts follow the same convention ( .min.js for minified version) do a helper that inserts the '.min' on the script that you pass is when in release

<%= Html.IncludeCorrectVersionOfScript("jquery-1.4.2.js") %>

Update:

Html helpers, are extension methods to Mvc's HtmlHelper class that you can use to emit the ActionLink, BeginForm, EditorFor, etc. You basically attach a new method (albiet static only) to that object so you can do Html.MyMethod.... A helper for this would be some like:

public static class ScriptIncludeHelper
{
    public static MvcHtmlString IncludeCorrectVersionOfScript(this HtmlHelper html, string script)
    {
        if (!html.ViewContext.HttpContext.IsDebuggingEnabled)
            script = script.Replace(".js", ".min.js");
        var tag = string.Format("<script type=\"text/javascript\" src=\"{0}\"></script>", script);

        return MvcHtmlString.Create(tag);
    }
}

Note that this is very simplified version (no validation of the string, etc.etc.etc.)

Now you could use the IsDebuggingEnabled or a configuration in your web.config or a static configuration to define if you want to include the minimized version of the debug version...

Hop this helps

Jaime 2010-07-21 16:31:43

I'm intrigued. I've read a little about HTML helpers, but I'm not completely clear. What exactly would the helper do? Check for debug vs. release compilation symbols, and include the correct files then? How would it know which files to include? Maybe you could elaborate a bit in your answer...

Mega Matt 2010-07-21 17:04:40

Answer 2

+1 A:

This is an example of how Rails handles it. It may or may not be a best practice, but eliminates the load from the developer completely.

A config file containing settings for each environment:

# resources.yml
# example config file

development:
    jquery_url: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.js

test:
    jquery_url: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js

production:
    jquery_url: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js

Parse the resources depending on the current environment into a variable that gets referenced everywhere on application startup.

RESOURCES = YAML::parse('resources.yml')[CURRENT_ENVIRONMENT]

Then use a base layout or template that gets included in all pages, instead of having each view or page specify it's own settings. The <%= yield %> indicates that output from child views or pages goes there.

# application.html.erb

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html
<head>
    <script src="<%= RESOURCES['jquery_url'] %>"</script>
</head>
<body> <% yield %> </body>
</html>

Then you simply have to change one key - CURRENT_ENVIRONMENT (development, test or production) to trigger everything. It is also useful for API keys and all other types of dependencies that already do or could potentially change between environments.

Anurag 2010-07-21 16:44:17

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Should I use minified or regular versions of jQuery plugins during development and deployment?

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