Can I gzip JavaScript and CSS files in Django?
You should think about placing your django application behind an HTTP reverse proxy.
You can configure apache to act as a reverse proxy to your django application, although a number of people seem to prefer using nginx or lighttpd for this scenario.
An HTTP reverse proxy basically is a proxy set up directly in front of your web application. Browsers make requests from the reverse proxy, and the reverse proxy forwards the requests to the web application. The reverse proxy can also do a number of interesting things like handle ssl, handle gzip-compressing all responses, and handle serving static files.
I tried profiling my web application and one of the bottlenecks reported was the lack of gzip compression. I proceeded to install the gzip middleware in Django and got a bit of a boost but a new report shows that it is only gzipping the HTML files i.e. any content processed by Django. Is there a way I could kludge/hack/force/make the middleware gzip my CSS and my JS as well? 
Could someone please answer my questions below. I've gotten a little lost with this.

I might have gotten it wrong but
people do gzip the CSS and the JS,
don't they?
Does Django not compress
JS and CSS for some browser
compatibility issues? 
Is compressing
and minifying the same thing?

Thanks.