Vitamin has a post by Cal Henderson for those creating next generation web applications that make heavy use of JavaScript and CSS. The main issue is the optimization of the content in order to give users the best possible experience when visiting the website.
The problem with client side applications is that the client?s browser tends to cache content in order to make it appear speedier for the end user. The problem with that is if any of the source code changes in the CSS and JavaScript the clients need to download the files again.
Henderson discusses the approach that many developers use which is keeping all CSS in one files and all JavaScript in one file. Pretty much any external files are located in a single file. He uses PHP Smarty to take the broken up JavaScript files to combine certain files.
For the most part, I don’t have too much traffic where mod_gzip is going to be a problem for me. If I decide to make the jump to Apache 2 his tips on using mod_deflate seem to be quite useful. In any case Henderson explains how to optimize mod_gzip for those using it.
Since most of my files are dynamic, creating the appropriate cache headers are very important in order for the applications to work correctly for my users.
He goes on to explain versioning of files. I had never really seen this previously, but it looks like it would be very helpful in the future. I’ll probably look into his proposed method and consider using it sooner rather than later.
