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Writing JavaScript without a build system

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Re: Writing JavaScript without a build system

#51

Post by TimTheTinker »

zapt02 wrote: post #33

Getting older projects to run was a huge pain for me when I started working with JavaScript, but I have found two easy steps to get around this: 1. Use nvm + an .nvmrc file in your project to pin the major version of Node.js you are using. I recently got a five year old Node 8 project up and running with no issues using this method. 2. Try to avoid packages that has binary dependencies (like node-sass). 99% of binary…

We recently solved this problem org-wide with Volta. It allows pinning both the Node and package manager (npm, yarn, etc.) version in each project's package.json file.

Even better, Volta automatically uses whatever node and package manager versions are declared in package.json -- no explicit call required. In other words, `node -v` and `npm -v` always return the version specified in package.json. It's been helpful for working with hundreds of repos and keeping CI and local dev synced on which versions to use automatically.

Re: Writing JavaScript without a build system

#52

Post by Cardinal7167 »

I’ve been using Fly.io’s default Go template lately since it has binary embeds by default and doesn’t incur any build system. I can’t explain how liberating it is to use vanilla JavaScript and CSS without any additional build process to develop a webapp. My entire deployment cycle is just building a go binary and pushing it. I can’t imagine going back. Even using Vue or React is just as easy as including a CDN or bundling a minified source with the binary.

Re: Writing JavaScript without a build system

#53

Post by handsclean »

I’ve had good luck splitting the difference by writing custom, dependency-free build scripts. You never get this accelerated code rot when you depend only on a mainstream language, it’s pretty trivial to implement a primitive version of bundling, inlining, macros, etc, and being primitive is far less limiting when you’re developing your build script hand-in-hand with your code.

Some things can’t be done like this, like TypeScript, for which I keep it to a minimum, look for stability, and often include a full copy in revision control.

Re: Writing JavaScript without a build system

#54

Post by telotortium »

doodlesdev wrote: post #47
zapt02 wrote: post #33

Getting older projects to run was a huge pain for me when I started working with JavaScript, but I have found two easy steps to get around this: 1. Use nvm + an .nvmrc file in your project to pin the major version of Node.js you are using. I recently got a five year old Node 8 project up and running with no issues using this method. 2. Try to avoid packages that has binary dependencies (like node-sass). 99% of binary…

Why rely on nvm to pin the NodeJS version you are using? That's natively supported as a field in your package.json [0], assumimg you're using npm/yarn/pnpm (you are). Example: { "engines": { "node": ">=0.10.3 Also, god forbid you are actually running anything using Node 8 and whatever dependencies you have there, that's a recipe for security disaster. The truth is that to use the NodeJS ecosystem we must have the dis…

Mostly because you want your project to just work. You've tested your project with a certain version of Node, and you want to ensure that you use the same exact version when you come back to the project in a year and want to perform some minor updates. You can set the node constraint in package.json, but that doesn't install the correct version of Node for you, unlike nvm.

Re: Writing JavaScript without a build system

#55

Post by ducharmdev »

agumonkey wrote: post #18
zelphirkalt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the Python ecosystem trends towards a similar state as the JS ecosystem, at least no one yet needs to have any ideas about "tree shaking" and hype that as some kind of "new idea". When one needs to "shake out" code, because it has become too much, one should really think about not getting that code in there in the first place. In the Python ecosystem some of the tooling does not exist, because it is not needed.…

python is rarely streamed across HTTP, I believe that's the reason js is treeshaked.

Yeah, I get the impression some believe they're comparing apples with apples because they're both interpreted languages, but we don't exactly send Python scripts to millions of arbitrary clients, all of which execute them immediately.

Re: Writing JavaScript without a build system

#56

Post by mhd »

bernardv wrote: post #6

All those extraneous elements to Javascript are a real turn-off. Python: batteries mostly included. Javascript: feels like you need to drag a dozen suitcases along anytime you embark on any non-trivial project.

It wasn't done in a nice way, but the kitchen-sink builds of PHP were quite nice as dependency-free environments back in the day. Image manipulation and all kinds of parsing and database connectivity stuff built in.

My experience with dependency-"free" web python is limited to small projects using Bottle (one downloaded .py file) and sqlite for tiny sites.

And a Tcl "starkit" aaages ago.

Re: Writing JavaScript without a build system

#57

Post by eterm »

duped wrote: post #21
kitsunesoba wrote: post #11

I've used `tsc --watch` as an almost-no-build-step way to write plain TypeScript with better structure (separate files, etc) for projects where dependencies aren't necessary, which works reasonably well with a few quirks, but I wish there were something more purpose-built for the task. TypeScript running natively in the browser would be amazing but I doubt that'll ever happen.

The problem with build systems isn't the existence of a build step but the necessity of the build system and its configuration. Typescript is baffling-ly complex to use compared to something like python.

> tsc build

What's complex about that?

Re: Writing JavaScript without a build system

#58

Post by TimTheTinker »

bernardv wrote: post #6

All those extraneous elements to Javascript are a real turn-off. Python: batteries mostly included. Javascript: feels like you need to drag a dozen suitcases along anytime you embark on any non-trivial project.

I think this holds only if you opt-in to tools like WebPack, Babel, Next.js, React, and the like - or have to work in a project where someone else opted-in to these tools.

Deno is a single portable binary file that can be embedded in app bundles and invoked on users' machines. That's easier said than done with Python.

Re: Writing JavaScript without a build system

#59

Post by jefftk »

I make a lot of small simple websites, I have approximately 0 maintenance energy for any of them, and I change them very infrequently.

I do this too, and no-build is definitely the way to go for them.

To make this even less effort, I log directly into the web server and edit them live. Once I'm happy I check in the changes.

Re: Writing JavaScript without a build system

#60

Post by throwingtoofar »

For simple Typescript without node:

1. Typescript in VSCode.

2. Simple script to watch a project directory for changes to .ts files that runs...

3. ...'deno cache ' to transpile them to JS. Then copy them from the cache directory.

deno also has a bunch of options for formatting, bundling etc.

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