Let me emphasize again that I did not mean to diminish using it, I just wanted to clarify that this is technically not a minification.
Don Chambers wrote:Can't see myself ever using this, for the same reason I do not minify css... I like to be able to read and understand the source.
I see where you're coming from, and while I'm not a fan of minifying HTML myself (because I'm one of those old farts who learned a lot from view:source), not minifying your CSS or JS is not the same.
Minifying CSS and JS is way simpler (less prone to error) and even more beneficial. The percentage that you can save on CSS and JS files is really significant, and it
is a performance matter. Yes, even on small sites. Plus, both are pretty easy to “unminify” in a text editor, and you can view minified CSS in the browser's dev tools without any problems. (Of course, the same is true for HTML.)
As for comments, well, few people tend to comment their HTML, CSS or JS as extensively as for instance PHP coders do. Also, leaving comments in HTML/CSS/JS is another performance issue since it blows up the files significantly. A good solution would be to include the unminified sources with a theme, e.g.
/templates/THEME/style.css
/templates/THEME/style.original.css
/templates/THEME/main.min.js
/templates/THEME/main.js
I, for instance, minify all CSS and JS in non-s9y projects these days. I don't always do it in s9y projects because it is harder to work with a build script (which takes care of the minification) in a s9y environment. Which is why I still would like a mechanism in s9y that minifys all CSS and JS used in the system.
YL