Should I HttpCombine Google Jquery Hosted File?
- by chobo2
Hi
I am using something called HttpCombiner: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/HttpCombiner
An HTTP handler that combines multiple
CSS, Javascript or URL into one
response for faster page load. It can
combine, compress and cache response
which results in faster page load and
better scalability of web application
It's a good practice to use many small
Javascript and CSS files instead of
one large Javascript/CSS file for
better code maintainability, but bad
in terms of website performance.
Although you should write your
Javascript code in small files and
break large CSS files into small
chunks but when browser requests those
javascript and css files, it makes one
Http request per file. Every Http
Request results in a network roundtrip
form your browser to the server and
the delay in reaching the server and
coming back to the browser is called
latency. So, if you have four
javascripts and three css files loaded
by a page, you are wasting time in
seven network roundtrips. Within USA,
latency is average 70ms. So, you waste
7x70 = 490ms, about half a second of
delay. Outside USA, average latency is
around 200ms. So, that means 1400ms of
waiting. Browser cannot show the page
properly until Css and Javascripts are
fully loaded. So, the more latency you
have, the slower page loads.
You can reduce the wait time by using
a CDN. Read my previous blog post
about using CDN. However, a better
solution is to deliver multiple files
over one request using an HttpHandler
that combines several files and
delivers as one output. So, instead of
putting many or tag,
you just put one and one
tag, and point them to the
HttpHandler. You tell the handler
which files to combine and it delivers
those files in one response. This
saves browser from making many
requests and eliminates the latency.
This Http Handler reads the file names
defined in a configuration and
combines all those files and delivers
as one response. It delivers the
response as gzip compressed to save
bandwidth. Moreover, it generates
proper cache header to cache the
response in browser cache, so that,
browser does not request it again on
future visit.
Now I am wondering since it can handle adding links should I put in it the jquery file?
The reason I am not sure is if it gets combined with my other files I think I might close the advantages of it being hosted on googles servers such as caching(my thinking is if it gets combined it will look different so even if a user has it in it's cache I am not sure if it will use the one for the cahce or not).
So should I combine it or only the finals that I am using locally?
