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Zwitterion: a web dev server that lets you import anything

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Re: Zwitterion: a web dev server that lets you import anything

#81

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

lastmjs wrote: post #79
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #75

It doesn't appear to support CSS files (or other flavors like SCSS), so calling it a "webpack killer" seems extra. Also, a lot of people need polyfills for node modules written for NodeJS that are used in browser; for example, Buffer. Webpack takes care of all of those nuances for you. I wouldn't call this a killer for my workflows, where I need Webpack features such as aliasing, etc. That being said, I support the e…

Hmm...excellent feedback! Thank you. I hope I wasn't dishonest with the title. I do believe Zwitterion has the potential to rival and replace Webpack eventually.

Zwitterion already would have application today; for example, you just want a simple dev server without writing a config, but maybe you want to use typescript, too. My apologies if the original comment seemed too critical. For my colleagues, Webpack has been a thorn in their side; I've accepted it and learned to wield it well. There is definitely demand out there for something simpler.

Re: Zwitterion: a web dev server that lets you import anything

#82

Post by kerkeslager »

gherkinnn wrote: post #49
christophilus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been doing React for years and haven’t experienced this. What kinds of apps are you building?

React Router used to be a mess. And should I use Redux? I thought it’s not cool anymore. If I do, do I store everything in a global state? Maybe I’ll use Context and Hooks. Or was it HoCs? And what about mobX? I heard it’s like Vue. I like Vue. And I absolutely need something to handle requests. Saga? Maybe some GraphQL? Now that I have my views, my state, and my data, how do I test this? Jest or something else? But…

I've used React for a while now, and I agree with you that most of these libraries are pretty garbage. I've solved this problem by just not using any of them.

These days I use two libraries: Preact and Immer. And I only introduce Immer to a project if state management becomes a pain point in the project, so I often don't even use Immer. I import these in my project with:

    
    

    // in my JS
    import { h, Component, render } from './path/to/preact.js';
    import produce from immer;
This is sort of janky because Immer doesn't provide a real JS module, but basically all this does is pull in a total of four variables: h, Component, render, and produce.

Re: Zwitterion: a web dev server that lets you import anything

#83

Post by lastmjs »

mavsman wrote: post #62
reaperducer wrote: post #54

"Zwitterion lets you get back to the good old days of web development." I'm OK with people pining for simpler times. There's a lot of projects that are overcomplicated these days. But the good old days of web development didn't require three files for "Hello, World."

It seems like that was just a way of showing how you can use import statements and other things in that setup without needing to set it up.

Exactly. You don't need any of that if you don't want it. You can write everything in your HTML file if you want, put your script in a script element (though there will be no compilation of the script element, if you want that it needs to be in its own file).

Re: Zwitterion: a web dev server that lets you import anything

#85

Post by lastmjs »

avip wrote: post #39
onion2k wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This project is very clearly under active dev. The box Github puts on the repo front page saying the last release was a year ago is misleading.

Which "box" are we talking about?

Yeah I've been seeing that too. I've definitely been working on it recently, I just stopped using semantic release which was doing GitHub releases, and I've switched to just using tags...which apparently aren't releases. I'll need to sort that out. Definitely under active development!

Re: Zwitterion: a web dev server that lets you import anything

#86

Post by ravenstine »

kerkeslager wrote: post #69
ccday wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ember.js is very much batteries-included although learning the framework definitely requires a time investment.

Ember.js is the highest-cognitive-load framework I've ever used. Not only do you have to understand all the bundling of JS, but you have to understand Ember's naming conventions and project structure, which has a lot of corners and edge cases. The basic problem is that they give you a bunch of configuration points and if you don't know what configuration point to insert your code at, you're either going to be writing…

I'm curious, when was the last time you used it? The Ember of today is a lot different from the Ember of 2015, and even the Ember of 2018. As of a week ago, it's now fully switched to a component library that can be used independently of the framework, and they're now template-only by default. It'd certainly be a shame if you completely gave up on it because of a version still using Ember.View.

EDIT: Forgot to mention component template co-location, which is pretty great, too.

Re: Zwitterion: a web dev server that lets you import anything

#87

Post by lastmjs »

genezeta wrote: post #70
flankstaek wrote: post #15

Cool project. "Also...Zwitterion is NOT a bundler. It eschews bundling for a simpler experience." I get that, run locally, it's not bundling, but how is it not a bundler when running static builds for production?

It seems like for production it just compiles the stuff (the things that need it) and puts everything into a /dist folder but it does not indeed bundle it. The author advises relying on HTTP2 to serve the files.

Exactly. Zwitterion relies on ES modules in production and development, so bundling is not strictly necessary. See the README for information on performance implications.

Re: Zwitterion: a web dev server that lets you import anything

#88

Post by kerkeslager »

nicoburns wrote: post #59
gherkinnn wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

React Router used to be a mess. And should I use Redux? I thought it’s not cool anymore. If I do, do I store everything in a global state? Maybe I’ll use Context and Hooks. Or was it HoCs? And what about mobX? I heard it’s like Vue. I like Vue. And I absolutely need something to handle requests. Saga? Maybe some GraphQL? Now that I have my views, my state, and my data, how do I test this? Jest or something else? But…

Everyone worries about these choices in react, but you don't need to, for most apps, they're all good choices: use redux or mobx, doesn't really matter. Use lodash or underscore, doesn't really matter. There are minor advantages to some of the tools, and the nice thing about the react ecosystem is that it lets you pick if you really need to, but for getting started, just pick one and move on. IMO this is highly prefe…

> Everyone worries about these choices in react, but you don't need to, for most apps, they're all good choices: use redux or mobx, doesn't really matter. Use lodash or underscore, doesn't really matter.

I'd argue that they're all bad choices.

Redux/Mobx are just causing you to use global state, which forces you into a single-page application anti-pattern. I've stopped using either and my code has become massively less complex.

Lodash/Underscore are massive libraries that you end up using only a few functions from. Many of these functions can be written in <10 lines of code yourself, and some are equivalent to ones that already exist in newer versions of vanilla JS. In the latter case I'll often use polyfills, and remove them as support for the new features gets good enough.

Re: Zwitterion: a web dev server that lets you import anything

#89

Post by lastmjs »

leonardopriori wrote: post #17

But again what is the advantage over parcel?

I think it's simpler. No bundling. You don't have to include a bundle file, you just include files directly as you would have without a bundler. That may seem like a trivial difference, and it could be, but it leads to simpler code and less of a delta between what you think is happening with your modules and what actually happens at runtime.
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