What is preventing Facebook from merging its CSS/JS files together?

I wonder about the reasoning behind Facebook developers' decision not to consolidate their scripts and stylesheets into single files, opting instead to load them on demand through their CDN.

Considering the complexity of Facebook as an application, I can see how this modular approach could streamline maintenance. However, shouldn't the typical optimization recommendations still be relevant, given its widespread usage?

Alternatively, does utilizing a CDN negate the usual performance drawbacks associated with numerous small scripts and styles?

Answer №1

One concept that stands out is BigPipe. BigPipe breaks down web pages into 'pagelets', processes them individually on servers, and sends them to the browser simultaneously. This results in lazy loading of almost all elements (CSS, JavaScript, images, content), making the page load faster by fetching small files incrementally.

Answer №2

In some cases, it may be more beneficial to serve different combinations of JS files to the browser at different times rather than combining them all into one. This is especially true if a browser only executes a small percent of the total JS code base at any given time due to different users and application configurations.

Furthermore, by serving individual files, they only need to be downloaded once and will not be requested again until changes are made or the cache expires. The initial visit is where the greatest benefit lies in this approach, especially when utilizing a reliable CDN with multiple edge locations worldwide.

Answer №3

It is possible they believe you are more inclined to frequent Facebook rather than clear out your browser cache regularly.

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