prepack

I’d actually love to see something that goes in the opposite direction, highly optimized and compiled, where the result is as small, fast, and efficient as possible. I get that a lot of people dislike compilation, but once I have the CI set upI never found build steps to be a problem for me. Some time ago while I was experimenting with writing Debian benchmarks[0], I found that by completely avoiding strings, using Uint8Arrays, and manually managing bounds/memory, I could squeeze out performance that almost made you forget you were writing JavaScript. I never ended up submitting a PR, but it was pretty eye-opening. At one point I went into a rabbit hole and tried to build something similar on my own, but it got complicated very quickly given my limited compiler knowledge. That’s why I always thought Prepack[1] was such a cool idea. [0] ht

Hello HN, I'm considering the development of a new programming language, drawing inspiration from Rust's strengths, with a focus on compiling to JavaScript. Here what I'm considering are some key features: - Strict Typing System: no type-related bugs. - Algebraic Data Types. - Exhaustiveness Checks. - 'Unsafe' Mode: Directly interact with external JavaScript/TypeScript. - no 'null/undefined': Option/Result instead. - Trait-Based Programming. - Backend Development Focus. - Compiler: dead-code elimination and partial evaluation, similar to Prepack[0] (by Facebook). I believe this approach could bring significant benefits, especially with recent additions like TypedArray and worker threads. Would this be of interest to the community? Looking forward to your insights and discussion. Currently I don't feel confident to complete the project as

Less or more it’s likely to happen, and could have been expected 2-3 years ago. Especially with https://github.com/facebook/prepack. They want to eventually ship pre-compiled components rather than React.createElement() to end user

The React team had explorations of a compiler for React, I believe - https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/9223 https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/7323 https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/7324 I also think this is why facebook had been investing in `prepack` - https://github.com/facebook/prepack

You're comparing a tool which you have source for and control over with a service which is out of your control. The comparison is of apples and oranges. Compare something like flow [1], reason [2], or prepack[3] as it's tools which serves you rather than the company behind it with access to the source which is the same as the case for weboob if you want to compare against facebook. I don't see an issue with using them though as they don't collect data on you. [1]: https://github.com/facebook/flow [2]: https://github.com/facebook/reason [3]: https://github.com/facebook/prepack [4]: https://github.com/majestrate/XD

They're influencing the internet in more ways than just social stuff, though. From a technology perspective, Facebook is doing solid work. And it looks like they're continuing the trend - rather than being at the end of it. Facebook's open source footprint is quite influential. Namely, React + Redux + Reselect are pretty sweet. React-Native. Haven't used it, but hhvm. And I haven't heard of this one before, but it looks cool: https://github.com/facebook/prepack https://github.com/facebook That's a nice portfolio.

I wonder what this means for their other projects under the same patents license? I've been really excited about pre-pack (https://github.com/facebook/prepack) but I'm afraid of being bound to their license agreement.

> helps make javascript code more efficient https://github.com/facebook/prepack/issues/543 Are you sure?

Not quite. This PR is almost ready to do it. https://github.com/facebook/prepack/pull/397 Currently it is blocked on Map/Set support in the output which is an outstanding issue. We could also try it with a Map/Set polyfill. We're very close to being able to though! In fact, this isn't just Prepack itself but it is Prepacking the JS part of the entire Node.js runtime as well!

Webpack handles sourcemaps, and one of us, gajus, has already integrated it. Prepack should be just another stage in the build pipeline. Having said that, there appears to be a sourceMaps flag in the Prepack source: https://github.com/facebook/prepack/blob/57cc59c07d164e4827c... I will be attempting to use this as a simple black box, relying on Webpack for features that are only tangentially related to this new optimization stage in my build stack.