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Scriptc by Vercel: TypeScript-to-Native compiler, no JavaScript engine in binary

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Re: Scriptc by Vercel: TypeScript-to-Native compiler, no JavaScript engine in binary

#3

Post by satvikpendem »

A lot of people are trying this now with AI, a native TypeScript compiler, for example https://github.com/PerryTS/pry. It's a compelling value proposition, TypeScript is already well typed and barring a few cases it can be turned into machine code without a JS runtime.

Re: Scriptc by Vercel: TypeScript-to-Native compiler, no JavaScript engine in binary

#4

Post by acmnrs »

Porforrhttps://porffor.dev> has been working towards the same goal for a while. The creator, CanadaHonkhttps://honk.foo>, is extremely talented and the project still only passes ~68% of Test262. I'm more than a little suspicious of how Vercel has made so much progress so fast, unless I'm misunderstanding the scope of this project.

Re: Scriptc by Vercel: TypeScript-to-Native compiler, no JavaScript engine in binary

#6

Post by simonw »

acmnrs wrote: post #4

Porforr https://porffor.dev > has been working towards the same goal for a while. The creator, CanadaHonk https://honk.foo >, is extremely talented and the project still only passes ~68% of Test262. I'm more than a little suspicious of how Vercel has made so much progress so fast, unless I'm misunderstanding the scope of this project.

> I'm more than a little suspicious of how Vercel has made so much progress so fast

Coding agents. They landed 918,000 lines of code in a single week: https://github.com/vercel-labs/scriptc/graphs/contributors?s...

Re: Scriptc by Vercel: TypeScript-to-Native compiler, no JavaScript engine in binary

#7

Post by acmnrs »

simonw wrote: post #6
acmnrs wrote: post #4

Porforr https://porffor.dev > has been working towards the same goal for a while. The creator, CanadaHonk https://honk.foo >, is extremely talented and the project still only passes ~68% of Test262. I'm more than a little suspicious of how Vercel has made so much progress so fast, unless I'm misunderstanding the scope of this project.

> I'm more than a little suspicious of how Vercel has made so much progress so fast Coding agents. They landed 918,000 lines of code in a single week: https://github.com/vercel-labs/scriptc/graphs/contributors?s...

That makes sense. It also seems like this uses a lot more dependencies and tiers of compilation whereas Porforr is trying to do everything from scratch.

Re: Scriptc by Vercel: TypeScript-to-Native compiler, no JavaScript engine in binary

#8

Post by sheept »

One of the strengths of TypeScript besides its expressiveness is that it's compatible with the massive npm ecosystem. Most packages only ship untyped JavaScript with type declarations defining the interface,[0] so realistically you'd still need a JavaScript engine if you use any packages.

But if you're starting from scratch and know you won't be using any npm packages, you might as well use AssemblyScript.[2]

[0]: Publishing packages in TypeScript is explicitly discouraged by Node[1]. TypeScript isn't backwards compatible even in minor releases, and its compiler settings aren't portable for packages.

[1]: https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/main/doc/api/typescript....

[2]: https://www.assemblyscript.org/

Re: Scriptc by Vercel: TypeScript-to-Native compiler, no JavaScript engine in binary

#9

Post by simonw »

sheept wrote: post #8

One of the strengths of TypeScript besides its expressiveness is that it's compatible with the massive npm ecosystem. Most packages only ship untyped JavaScript with type declarations defining the interface,[0] so realistically you'd still need a JavaScript engine if you use any packages. But if you're starting from scratch and know you won't be using any npm packages, you might as well use AssemblyScript.[2] [0]: Pu…

> so realistically you'd still need a JavaScript engine if you use any packages.

Looks like Scriptc's solution to that problem is that it can optionally bundle a 620KB quickjs-ng JavaScript engine if you have dependencies that need to be executed that way.

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