Wednesday, March 15, 2023

javascript / node.js without build

 You Don't Need a Build Step

Deno folks have an alternative JS runtime to promote, but they always make great points. A build step has helped with getting things to run in the browser or to transpile and bundle code elsewhere. But with modern tooling, do we still need a build step? Andy lays out the problem and explains how, unsurprisingly, Deno and Fresh work around it.

ANDY JIANG (DENO)


"As long as developers are not writing raw HTML, JS, and CSS, and need to optimize assets for the performance of the end user, there will inevitably be some sort of "build" step. Whether that step is a separate step that takes minutes and happens in CI/CD or just-in-time when the request happens, depends on your framework or stack of choice.

But removing the build step means you can move faster and be more productive. Stay in flow for longer. No more sword fighting breaks (sorry) or context switching when making a change to your code.

You can also deploy faster. Since there's no build step, especially when using Deno Deploy's v8 isolate cloud, your deployment globally takes seconds since it's simply uploading a few kb's of JavaScript."

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