How about minified JS? What would be the best? Consider the massive amount of machine (or even IR) code that each identifier, built-in function, loop, switch and all other "syntax sugar" aka high-level-language-construct represents..

> What would be the best?

Most likely, compressed opcode.

Could well be, depending on the app, dunno.. it's still the case that on the whole practically almost each lexeme in a high-level language expands into a giant ball of opcodes.. ;)

I mean you can compress those identifiers further into "op-codes-of-sorts" by renaming each to a 1-char but then that's what any minifier does

why stop there? just compress the entire dang thing and add decompressor in the execution.

"We're" (many) already doing that too via gzipped responses (faster to decompress than to compress == neat for web uses). That's my point, a higher language is already "compressing" machine representation (all abstractions kinda do), minification turns its lengthy identifiers into minimal "codes", then the gzip.

hm.. I assume gzip is doing a lot of entropy reduction already.. curious if minification has reduced or nil effect after gzip.