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Development Tools Introduction to Front End Performance Optimization Combine and Minify Assets Optimize JavaScript

Alex Hort-Francis
Alex Hort-Francis
17,074 Points
Posted by Alex Hort-Francis
Alex Hort-Francis
17,074 Points

Requesting & downloading the same Javascript library (hosted vs local)

This is interesting: what Nick is saying towards the end of the video sounds as though modern browsers are likely to download the same file even if it is already cached by the user's browser if it is hosted by the website, as opposed to an external server.

I wonder further about the exact logistics of this: does the browser not check things like the file name for already-cached versions, for example?

I imagine there are other advantages to using 'hosted libraries' in the way he recommends as a default best practice, such as keeping libraries used on the site up to date automatically.

Does anyone have any further opinions on this topic?

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,268 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,268 Points

The file name alone is not sufficient to identify a file, it must have been cached from the same location. For example, two websites (or even two pages on the same site) might have very different sounds in a file named "beep.wav".