If I use the Closure Compiler, it goes from code like this:

var Greeter = (function () {
    function Greeter(message) {
        this.greeting = message;
    }
    Greeter.prototype.greet = function () {
        console.log(this.getMessage());
    };

    Greeter.prototype.getMessage = function () {
        return "Hello, " + this.greeting;
    };
    return Greeter;
})();


var x = new Greeter();
x.greet();
console.log(x.getMessage());

to this:

var b = new (function() {
  function a(a) {
    this.c = a;
  }
  a.prototype.b = function() {
    console.log(this.a());
  };
  a.prototype.a = function() {
    return "Hello, " + this.c;
  };
  return a;
}());
b.b();
console.log(b.a());

Here, the greeting field and getMessage names have been correctly minified. The "over-minification" of other variables leads to my next discussion point on this.

Some people think class names, property names, parameter names, local names, etc are meaningful runtime metadata, other people think they're not. Some other people think only some of their property names, parameter names, local names, and so on are things that should be minified. Among those people, there's disagreement over how those names should be specified (globally? locally? in the code? in a config file? on a commandline?). Nearly everyone believes that their set of rules is the only one that makes sense.

The only path forward that could beat existing minifiers also involves a ton of configuration for what the allowed set of minifications even is; implementing and testing all these rules would be very expensive. It's a lot of investment for what is probably a few percent improvement (especially after gzipping) over the state of the art here. That's why we want to see compelling examples for where only the TypeScript compiler could minify and do a meaningfully better job than any existing tool.

Suggestion: minification #8

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RyanCavanaughopenedon Jul 15, 2014

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RyanCavanaugh
openedon Jul 15, 2014