Comments on: Ten good practices for writing JavaScript in 2005

By: Ian Bicking

Ian Bicking — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

He advocates short variable names to keep your Javascript speedy. I don’t know what to make of that.

By: thody

thody — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Yeah…that one kind of raised my ears too. The rest of it was pretty helpful though. I like where I see Javascript going these days.

By: someonewhois

someonewhois — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Maybe he means small file names to save bandwidth? Beats me.

By: wranga

wranga — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Maybe because Javascript isn’t compiled longer variable names have an impact on it’s speed. I wouldn’t think that the impact would be that significant, though.

By: ChiliJ

ChiliJ — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

It’s probably bandwidth. But, sacrificing readability for the sake of a little bandwidth in not really good practice. People concerned with bandwidth should run their script through a compressor/obfuscator, which could strip unnecessary spaces and comments, including changing of variable names.

By: bsluis

bsluis — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

What I meant is that the size of the JS file impacts the speed of the download, which on its turn may impact the speed the unobtrusive behavior gets attached.

I agree that keeping variable names short (using myVar instead of myVeryDescriptiveVar) doesn't have a significant impact on the download speed of the JS file by itself, however the total of using short variable names, condensing code before deployment, short straightforward code, HTTP compression, etc. will.

But point taken, it was short on context and it probably shouldn't have been a seperate bullet at all. Hope this answered your questions.

By: Octal

Octal — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

As Bruce Lee said; "Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough we must do."

Nice tips there bsluis

By: wei

wei — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

You can alway compress the javascript for production.

Free tool
http://www.saltstorm.net/depo/esc/introduction.wbm

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

“however the total of using short variable names, condensing code before deployment, short straightforward code, HTTP compression, etc. will.”

huh? compression will negate the difference between short names and long variable names: regardless of the length of a variable name, in compressed text it’ll be represented by a single token.

By: Kadence

Kadence — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

But, sacrificing readability for the sake of a little bandwidth in not really good practice.

I agree with this.