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Parcel: Fast, zero configuration web application bundler

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Re: Parcel: Fast, zero configuration web application bundler

#41

Post by vmware505 »

mattbreeden wrote: post #35

I hate doing javascript. I have no desire to attempt to understand or mess with JS or build systems past the bare minimum I can manage to get a project working so I can move on with my life. So I tried using this. It was nice while what I was doing fit inside of everything that was default settings and/or what maintainers used. As soon as I stepped outside of that I ran into things like having to hope someone impleme…

Actually, if you prefer strickt typed languages, maybe give TypeScript a try. It is such a beauty, make JavaScript great again. ;)

Re: Parcel: Fast, zero configuration web application bundler

#42

Post by tomnipotent »

alex_suzuki wrote: post #38
yoz-y wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the JavaScript ecosystem needs something akin to Boost. I do not like using Boost in C++, however the way their libraries are built and integrated into standard is awesome.

Wasn't that jQuery?

That was more like it's C++98 moment.

Re: Parcel: Fast, zero configuration web application bundler

#43

Post by Nimelrian »

yzmtf2008 wrote: post #19

Congrats to the Parcel team! Really great work. Having used Parcel in personal projects for the past year, it really is a great user experience. Despite what people says in the comments, Parcel has its (great) value. The ability to import a rust file directly and have it compiled to a web assembly module for example, is a great piece of engineering and exceeded my expectations for web build tools. Parcel also hits th…

> Parcel has a better experience than your C++ build tools. Be it CMake, Ninja, or whatever build tools people use in 2018.

I don't think there are many people who'd say that there's any good experience with using CMake for any slightly complicated project.

Re: Parcel: Fast, zero configuration web application bundler

#44

Post by tomnipotent »

cjhanks wrote: post #39
tomnipotent wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compiling code from C++ to WASM is counter-productive When did WASM come into the picture? I use Parcel because my time is valuable and I don't want to master the arcane arts of modern JS build toolchains but I still NEED to benefit from them if I'm to run a successful business and make sure my investors get their money back and a language I can deliver plain text over HTTP/S that runs performantly across billions…

What do you want me to say? Maybe you have reading comprehension issues?

You brought up C++ & WASM in a post where it made absolutely NO contextual sense so you could shit on someones work and I'm the one with comprehension issues? Grow up.

Re: Parcel: Fast, zero configuration web application bundler

#45

Post by yoz-y »

alex_suzuki wrote: post #38
yoz-y wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the JavaScript ecosystem needs something akin to Boost. I do not like using Boost in C++, however the way their libraries are built and integrated into standard is awesome.

Wasn't that jQuery?

Yes, kind of, however jQuery is more geared towards the frontend whereas many of the packages pulled in now are for backend or general use (your zero-pads and moment and whatnot)

Re: Parcel: Fast, zero configuration web application bundler

#46

Post by Soinou »

yzmtf2008 wrote: post #24
joshwa wrote: post #2

Ah, the neverending cycle. 1. The existing tool is way too complicated to configure and slow. Let me introduce a new, zero-configuration, blazing fast tool 2. OK so because it's strongly opinionated there are some things it can't do. So we'll allow you to extend it via plugins. You'll have to configure this. 3. Due to the increasing popularity, we are making a meta-version that lets you re-plug any element in the ent…

I think this is a great exaggeration of the "javascript build tools are hard to config" meme, and it honestly is obsolete. Maybe the meme was relevant two years ago, but every since (1) create-react-app and (2) webpack 3, the configuration story has greatly improved. With Webpack 4 and Parcel especially, these tool are both zero config and configurable . Your point 1 and 3 are actually not mutually exclusive, and rep…

I'll be speaking for Webpack, since it's the only one I use for the few internal applications at work, and I've never really used Parcel yet.

Configuring Webpack is still pretty bad. If the zero config works for you, great. But if you need to configure it yourself, it's really verbose, it's really complicated, and the documentation is a bit thin.

SplitChunks in Webpack are like black magic, they work but you don't have any idea how, and when they don't work, you still have no idea how. And you don't know if it's because you didn't configure them properly, because you don't know what is configuring them properly, because the documentation on them is so bad.

Maybe I'm just bad at configuring Webpack, but I still don't understand how many things in Webpack work, and it's given me a lot of headaches, even with the "zero config" Webpack 4.

Re: Parcel: Fast, zero configuration web application bundler

#47

Post by thatswrong0 »

ivanfon wrote: post #18

Is something really wrong with WebPack? Didn’t we decide that we want more modularity and plugins, instead of “zero configuration” solutions that lock you into a few technologies? What about the next hip new frameworks that release in the future? Will they just be piled into parcel, or will they add a plugin system? This seems like an unsustainable model.

Caching and parallelization are my complaints with WebPack. WebPack doesn't cache that well out of the box, and plugins like HardSource seem to have errors often enough that they're kind of annoying. WebPack also doesn't have parallelization built in, so you need something like HappyPack. Maybe I was doing something stupid, but I wasn't able to get HappyPack and HardSource to work together nicely.

Re: Parcel: Fast, zero configuration web application bundler

#48

Post by jwdunne »

yoz-y wrote: post #32
bradknowles wrote: post #12

IMO, the fact that 1726 modules is a “reasonable” number for a web app is a clear indication that there is something seriously wrong with this process.

I think the JavaScript ecosystem needs something akin to Boost. I do not like using Boost in C++, however the way their libraries are built and integrated into standard is awesome.

Yeah, I agree. "Tiny modules" is a thing in JS i.e there are people, influential developers, that champion the existence of modules like "left-pad", "is-positive-zero", etc. The idea is that "npm is the stdlib" but its not a very good one when your node_modules folder is always 1000+ large.

This is one of a few tiring patterns in the JS ecosystem. The other is "you should be using grunt", "should be using gulp", "nooo just use NPM scripts". Ok so now our package manager is a task runner too despite the insistence on "tiny modules that do one thing well coz Unix!"

Now we have webpack. That isn't tiny but is. Its not a build tool. It's a build platform. How do you extend it? Yep. Tiny modules. In the configuration. Zero conf? Maybe for a 0 dependency tiny module. Then when they introduce a major version that breaks pretty much every plugin, the response? "That is what we call a fixed mindset. We want a growth mindset".

I wouldn't mind if the package management solution was built with tiny, one-big-lib in mind. I wouldn't mind if the ecosystem didn't contradict itself so much. Its just tiring.

Re: Parcel: Fast, zero configuration web application bundler

#49

Post by some_account »

tomnipotent wrote: post #21
joshwa wrote: post #2

Ah, the neverending cycle. 1. The existing tool is way too complicated to configure and slow. Let me introduce a new, zero-configuration, blazing fast tool 2. OK so because it's strongly opinionated there are some things it can't do. So we'll allow you to extend it via plugins. You'll have to configure this. 3. Due to the increasing popularity, we are making a meta-version that lets you re-plug any element in the ent…

You mean iterating on something, sorta the entire conceptual model behind the scientific method of experimentation?

Iterating without improvement is just making a different wheel, if you know what I mean.

It gives the impression of progress without actually making progress.

This is also why I got tired being a programmer after doing it for many years. First version is always super nice. Then you add features, and refactor. Doing this is slower and slower the bigger your software gets. At the end, your software is filled with complexity and you want to rewrite it from scratch. So you do, and you are back with a nice version. Until again, more features need to be added.

Now, does this example above mean the developer is innovating? Are we getting somewhere? No. At the end, his product is going to be replaced by other products that does the job better - until they also meet the same fate.

Re: Parcel: Fast, zero configuration web application bundler

#50

Post by modernerd »

cjhanks wrote: post #4

The code looks nice, I hope it has helped you in your life. But frankly, if a JavaScript developer ever really wants to solve the problem... Learn enough C++ to write the equivalent code that compiles 6.5M in 0.1 seconds (assuming a nice HD).

Others feel the same.

Fastpack is a binary JS bundler written in OCaml:

http://fastpack.io/

It’s new and missing some features (http://fastpack.io/docs/get-started.html ), but already faster than Webpack / Parcel. It also supports Webpack loaders.

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