Application.js and Application.css not being cached by my browser

I was recently troubleshooting an issue with an application I'm building.  I'm using Apache 2.x,  Rails 4.x and after properly configuring the asset pipeline for my staging environment to use pre-complied assets and allowing Apache to serve those assets the application.js and application.css files were not being cached by Chrome.   At first I thought this was an issue with Rails but quickly tailing the log file indicated that Rails wasn't involved with the assets and this was something on the Apache or browser end.  I suspected Apache so I reviewed my configuration but everything seemed just fine. That's when I stumbled across this post on Chrome not caching files if HTTPS is used...   It turns out that I am indeed using a self signed certificate in my stage environment and my application enforces SSL so that's why these files were not cached by the browser.  Maybe this should have been obvious to me but I did spin for a couple hours on this so because of that I thought this post was in order to hopefully save someone else the same effort.   Basically, if your using self signed certificates you should expect Chrome to cache your assets.

Food for thought...

My normal posts involve technical problems and how I've solved them so please forgive this off topic post but I do feel as though I need to give a plug here.

For the better part of three decades I've worked for and with Michael Johnson.  I've learned a great many things from my friend and colleague over time and he's just recently started doing some short podcasts on business and technology.  Michael is a true no business business guy and he has an excellent technology background.  These podcasts represent many things I've learned from Michael over the years and I urge you to take a few minutes to listen.

Michaels podcast page can be found here and one of my favorites of his podcasts is here.