Some notes on using esbuild

Post by BiteCode_dev » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 10:15 AM UTC

hsn915 wrote: post #20

oefrha wrote: post #16

If you're going to have a build step at all, instead of hand rolling your build commands and configs, just use Vite[1] already. It uses esbuild for development and rollup for production (since esbuild is not featureful enough for a lot of production use cases), you get instantaneous startup, hot module replacement, static asset imports, etc. for free. It's from Evan You, the creator of Vue, but it also supports React…

I don't understand the point of vite. I tried using it and the "build" took over 30 seconds. esbuilds takes less than 1 second for the same project. > esbuild is not featureful enough for a lot of production use cases What makes you say that? I keep hearing people say this, but I haven't run into any problem that make esbuild not ready for production.

Post by oefrha » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 10:23 AM UTC

inopinatus wrote: post #32

oefrha wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tried using it and the "build" took over 30 seconds. It hardly matters because it's very rare that you need to run build during development. Use dev. > I keep hearing people say this, but I haven't run into any problem that make esbuild not ready for production. https://vitejs.dev/guide/why.html#why-not-bundle-with-esbuil...

I read that as yet another 30 seconds for a CI or production build, on top of every other inefficient tool shipping with an inflated sense of necessity and no feel for devops concerns. Accepting such into your toolset remains a primary source of creeping bloat. The JS ecosystem is riddled with such pests, and (as with webpack) eradication from our workflows always proves by far the best policy.

Post by rudian » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 10:34 AM UTC

hsn915 wrote: post #30

> problem 1: libraries that tell you to npm install them Agreed. I wish `npm install` was just some option for those who wanted it. But no! Somehow it became the defacto standard and everyone just expects everyone else to already be onboard. I got onboard reluctently because that's the only way to use the libraries I cared about. > problem 2: I don’t understand frontend build tools Absolute and total agreement. I can…

Post by mkl » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 10:48 AM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #24

hsn915 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the point of vite. I tried using it and the "build" took over 30 seconds. esbuilds takes less than 1 second for the same project. > esbuild is not featureful enough for a lot of production use cases What makes you say that? I keep hearing people say this, but I haven't run into any problem that make esbuild not ready for production.

ESBuild doesn't transpile your code down to ES5. If you're using any ES6 features - default params, template literals, arrow functions, let/const, spread, etc, your cut-off for browser support will be ~2017 (= no support for IE 11). swc ( https://swc.rs ) does transpilation and it's as fast as esbuild. Setup is slightly more complex. I'm hoping esbuild will add ES5 transforms at some point, would much rather have a G…

Post by alichapman » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 10:52 AM UTC

phist_mcgee wrote: post #38

swyx wrote: post #7

Julia is one of my favorite examples of learning in public as a developer. Her technical chops are unquestioned so when she says things like "I have no idea what import does" it really drives home how much the JS community has to do to bring along the rest of the developer population who just wants to make web stuff occasionally without going to JS Build Tool University. I love this and maybe it would be great for so…

Can you link which Julia you are speaking about?