Brian Muenzenmeyer on new(ish) things in Node:
Through the efforts of contributors over several recent majors, great new features are landing. Each is useful in isolation, but put together they form a more and more comprehensive standard library.
Do you need a 3rd party testing library like jest? Maybe, but there is a tester built in now. Do you need a 3rd party file watcher like chokidar? Maybe, but there is a built-in watcher now. Do you need a build process to deal with TypeScript? Not anymore. Do you need chalk to colorize/style terminal output? Not anymore.
You still need a build process, you have always needed build processes, you will always need a build process. Node stripping types are not prod ready. Considering things like Enums, Decorators, and parameter properties don’t work without a build process.
From Carniato:
I don’t know where a very small subset of the JS community got the idea that they should be able to plop anything into a browser and it just work. That’s never been how it works in the real world. Native types are just supposed to sit there taking up precious space? Or is minification supposed to strip? And is that considered OK because you can’t remember a time it wasn’t standard?
Very confused where this no build mentality comes from. I think it likely arose out of a framework marketing bullet point.
I think the web is a very big place and the fact that you need or want a build process on your project doesn’t mean that I need one on mine. The point of me linking up this piece is “sometimes it’s nice to use less tools, because tools have a certain level of technical debt, and that price will always be paid.”