It is sometimes reasonable to "compress" released code, especially if it can be done automatically and there is benefit to doing so. In the case of JavaScript,

It is sometimes reasonable to "compress" released code, especially if it can be done automatically and there is benefit to doing so. In the case of JavaScript, the main benefit is that the file download size is smaller. However, unless there is an absolutely measurable and significant advantage, I find "clever" code to be far more trouble than it is worth. Engineer time is very expensive, and you don't want people sitting and studying code for very long just to figure out how to change it safely.