Minifying and combining files in .net

Question

I am looking at implementing some performance optimization around my javascript/css. In particular looking to achieve the minification and combining of such. I am developing in .net/c# web applications.

I have a couple of options and looking for feedback on each:

First one is this clever tool I came across Chirpy which via visual studio combines, minifies etc -> http://chirpy.codeplex.com/ This is a visual studio add in but as I am in a team environment, this tool isnt ideal.

My next option is to use an Msbuild task (http://yuicompressor.codeplex.com/) to minify the files and also combine them (maybe read from an xml file what needs to be combined). While this works for minifying fine, the concern I have is that I will have to maintain what must be combined which could be a headache.

3rd option is to use msbuild task just for the minifying and at runtime using some helper classes, combine the files on a per page basis. This would combine the files, give it a name and add a version to it.

Any other options I could consider? My concern with the last option is that it may have performance issues as I would have to open the file from the local drive, read its contents and then combine the files. This is alot of processing at run time. I was looking at something like Squishit - https://github.com/jetheredge/SquishIt/downloads This minifies the files at run time but I would look at doing this at compile time.

So any feedback on my approaches would be great? If the 3rd option would not cause performance issues, I am leading towards it.

Answer 1

It's worthwhile combining the files at run time to avoid having to synchronise new versions. However, once they are programmatically combined, cache them to disk. Then the code which runs each time the files are fetched need only check that the files haven't changed before serving the cached version.

If they have changed, then the compression code can run as a one-off. Whilst there will be a slight performance cost, you will also receive a performance benefit from fewer file requests.

This is the approach that the Minify tool uses to compress JS/CSS, which has worked really well for me. It's Linux/PHP only, but you might get some more ideas there too.