Hasty Treat - TypeScript Compilers and Build Tools

Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about the differences between compilers and build tools in TypeScript.

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Show Notes

03:38 - What is a TypeScript compiler?

• Do we still need Babel / WebPack?

07:49 - Babel

• Transpiler
• It doesn’t do typechecking
• New JS features that aren’t in TypeScript yet

10:22 - SWC

• Rust based compiler
• Doesn’t do type checking (yet)
• https://github.com/swc-project/swc/issues/571

13:03 - Deno

• Uses tsc right now
• Might move to Rust
• https://github.com/denoland/deno/issues/5432

13:36 - Surcase

• https://github.com/alangpierce/sucrase#transforms

14:46 - ESBuild

• Compiles, but doesn’t do any type checking
• Fastest

17:39 - What about bundlers?

• Parcel
• Snowpack
• Webpack
• ESBuild
• When might you still need a bundler?
  • To handle different types of files that are non-standard
    • Like importing CSS and images
• Treeshaking
• Smaller bundle files
  • Typescript can concatenate to a single file, or all .js files, but smaller / smarter bundles still need a tool for that
• Polyfills
  • Typescript does convert to syntax, but will not polyfill features
  • Something like Promise
    • Syntax can be transpiled to old code
    • Methods like allSettled aren’t

Links

• Syntax 324: TypeScript Fundamentals
• Syntax 322: The Deno Show

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