ANN: Zazl AMD Optimizer

[Richard Backhouse]

I'd like to introduce the Zazl AMD Optimizer that is available at https://github.com/zazl/optimizer. There is a Getting Started Wiki that can be found at https://github.com/zazl/optimizer/wiki/Getting-Started-with-the-AMD-Optimizer

The goal of this AMD loader/optimizer is to enable developers to produced optimized (concatenated and compressed) AMD based applications without having to resort to static build tools. This does require some form of server-side support above and beyond static resource loading.

Here are some highlighted features :

• It provides its own AMD compliant loader (passes all the current tests) that enables caching of i18n and text plugin output
• Server-side support is available via either Java/Servlets or a Node.js http handler
  
• The analysis of the code and optimization is performed on demand at runtime via the server-side component.
• AST Parsing is used to obtain dependency data (Uglify-js AST parser used in Node.js version, either Uglify-js AST parser or esprima used in Java version).
  
• Supports expiration based caching (Java only) and validation based caching.
• Server side caching is used whenever possible. That includes caching of resources and also the generated analyisis data.
  
• Code modifications are picked up dynamically without having the restart the server.
• JavaScript compression
  
• Node.js based compression is supported via Uglify-js. (Note: using compression substantially slows down the initial request).
  
• Java based compression is supported via Dojo Shrinksafe although optionally Closure support is possible.
• Gzip compression of the response when the HTTP headers indicate support.
• Dynamically referenced modules (that is modules loaded via "require" calls) are loaded, along with their dependencies) via script injection.
  

If you have Node.js (> v0.6) available the easiest way to try it is to install via npm.

npm install zazloptimizer

More details can be found at https://github.com/zazl/optimizer/wiki/Using-the-NodeJS-Zazl-Optimizer

Richard

[John Hann]

belated congrats, Richard!  :)

[Thomas Davis]

Looks pretty cool I hope to try it out soon