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Welcome to JavaScript!

It's true that JS files are typically cached after the first time they're requested, but uncached requests still have to download the file. Browser caches are limited in size and are sometimes cleared, so cached files don't stay cached indefinitely. Minifying JS ensures that all files are as small as possible, so that even an uncached request is as fast as it can be.

Minification is especially important for mobile browsers, most of which don't have persistent caches (they only cache things in temporary memory, which is wiped when you exit the app). Mobile browsers are both more likely to have unprimed caches and more likely to be on slow or high-latency connections.

It's definitely not a good idea to try to edit minified files. The best way to manage this is to use a build tool of some kind so that you can work on raw files during development, and quickly convert them to minified files when you're ready to push them to production.

The YUI Builder can do this, but is probably too complicated for your needs. An easier solution might be to use a simple Makefile like the one described in this blog post: http://wonko.com/post/simple-makefile-t ... css-and-js