Hasty Treat - TypeScript Compilers and Build Tools
Feb 15, 2021•23 min
Episode description
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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