Readit Newsprisenco commented on JSDoc is TypeScript culi.bearblog.dev/jsdoc-i... · Posted by u/culi
You don't need a build step anymore with TypeScript since Node 24.
I'm referring to client-side javascript.
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> Code written for a web browser 30 years ago will still run in a web browser today.
Will it? - My browser doesn't have document.layers (Netscape) It seems to still have document.all (MSIE), but not sure it's 100% compatible to all the shenanigans from the pre-DOM times as it's now mapped to DOM elements.
The Space Jam website from 1996 still renders perfectly almost 30 years later.
https://www.spacejam.com/1996/
Those (document.layers and document.all) were both vendor-specific, neither were part of the w3c. I don't recommend ever writing vendor-specific code.
The w3c and standards have generally won so it's easier than ever to write to the standard.
I have not written a line of JavaScript that got shipped as-is in probably a decade. It always goes through Vite or Webpack. So the benefit of JS without a build step is of no benefit to me.
Dare to dream and be bold.
Seriously, start a project and use only the standards. You'll be surprised how good the experience can be.
It's such a lovely and simple stack.
No Lit Element or Lit or whatever it's branded now, no framework just vanilla web components, lit-html in a render() method, class properties for reactivity, JSDoc for opt-in typing, using it where it makes sense but not junking up the code base where it's not needed...
No build step, no bundles, most things stay in light dom, so just normal CSS, no source maps, transpiling or wasted hours with framework version churn...
Such a wonderful and relaxing way to do modern web development.
I love it. I've had a hard time convincing clients it's the best way to go but any side projects recently and going forward will always start with this frontend stack and no more until fully necessary.
Why? The half a second for the HMR is taking up too much your day?
No, because layers of abstraction come at a cost and we have created a temple to the clouds piled with abstractions. Any option to simplify processes and remove abstractions should be taken or at least strongly considered.
Code written for a web browser 30 years ago will still run in a web browser today. But what guarantee does a build step have that the toolchain will still even exist 30 years from now?
And because modern HTML/CSS is powerful and improving at a rapid clip. I don't want to be stuck on non-standard frameworks when the rest of the world moves on to better and better standards.
On the one hand I can see the appeal of not having a build step. On the other, given how many different parts of the web dev pipeline require one, it seems very tricky to get all of your dependencies to be build-step-free. And with things like HMR the cost of a build step is much ameliorated.
I haven't run into any steps that require one, there's always alternatives.
Do you have anything specific in mind?