Question

Does removing comments from JavaScript code improve performance?

I realize that this is not great programing practice as comments form an intrinsic part of development. I am just interested to know if they do in fact add some overhead during compilation.

Answer 1

Whether your compiling or interpreting your JavaScript, the compiler/interpreter needs to look at the line, decide it’s a comment, and move on (or look at a region of the line). For web applications, the comment lines also need to be downloaded.

So yes, there is some overhead.

However, I doubt you could find a real-world scenario where that difference matters.

If you are compiling your code, the overhead is only during the compile run, not during subsequent execution.