So we all have heard that its good to bundle your javascript. Of course it is, but it seems to me that the story is too simple.

See if my logic makes sense here.

Obviously fewer HTTP requests is fewer round trips and hence better. However - and I don't know much about bare http - aren't http responses sent in chunks? And if a file is larger than one of those chunks doesn't it have to be downloaded as multiple (possibly synchronous?) round trips? As opposed to this, several requests for files just under the chunking size would arrive much quicker since modern web browsers download resources like javascripts in parallel.

Even if chunking is not an issue, it seems like there would be some max recommended size just due to likelyhood of packet loss alone since a bundled file must wait till it is entirely downloaded to execute, versus the more lenient native rule that scripts must execute in order.

Obviously there's also matters of browser caching and code volatility to consider but can someone confirm this or explain why I'm off base? Does anyone have any numbers to put to it?