Re: [Dynapi-Dev] compression?

[Dan S. <dy...@fu...>]

Pascal, initially I wasn't so hot to trot with whitespace compression either, but after playing around with it it's really quite cool, and I'm glad I put in the time to create my little jspack util.  If you check again, the compression ratio is closer to about 30%, more or less depending on how many comments you put in there.  All the /api/ files were "manually" compress.  I don't particularly enjoy reading code that is like this:

if(b)c=2
else if(a&&b||c&&d<=4)method()
else {method();return false}

And with the system set up now, we won't have to.  You just write your code, putting in all the comments and whitespace you want, and (as long as the ;'s are correct) it will all be squished down for you in a build release.

Also, jspack compresses stuff that gzip/jar's can't do much with, like the following:

if (a) {

}
else if (b || c) {

}

The spaces and line breaks have to be maintained.  But in a jspacked version:

if(a){}else if(b||c){}

It's already taken care of.  After you jspack, and jar/gzip it, you're up to over 80% compression (85% for dynapi2 currently).  Whereas gzip on it's own can only do about 60%.  Plus by whitespace compression, each individual file can be compressed, whereas there's no point in having an individual gzip/jar file for each js file because you don't gain much in small files. 

Another thing that's kinda cool, imagine when you build a game, or standalone app in JS.  When you want to release the app to the public, you can build your own JS pack file with the code you need all in there (GPL license allows u to do this if the program you wrote is also GPL).  I'm rewriting my tetris game, so I'd make a jspack for it with:

jspack -o tetris-packed.js tetris.js ../dynapi/dynapi.js ../dynapi/api/ ../dynapi/gui/image.js

That produces a single js file with all the code I need squished together.  This is an ideal way to publish js apps or games IMO because you no longer need to include the entire dynapi with your app (or copy select files along .

Dan


On Fri, Dec 08, 2000 at 12:49:06PM +0100, Pascal Bestebroer wrote:
> Not to be raving on anybodys parade, but whitespace compressions isn't
> really worth it is it?  You only stripped about 4kb off the complete api/
> folder (dynlayer,dyndocument,etc..) if you remove all comments and
> semi-colons from the un-"compressed" files, you will probably end up with
> even less "compression".
> 
> I know that compression on all widgets might give more advantage, but then
> again when will you be actually using all widgets?
> 
> I think the jar and gzip are great, but jar won't work in IE, and I don't
> think gzip works in ie4 (and how about IE on Macs?)
> 
> Am I missing some advantage in this?
> 
> 
> 
> Pascal Bestebroer
> pb...@oi...
> http://www.oibv.com
> 
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