Javascript build tooling is a mess

It’s refreshing to read Julia’s article about esbuild. I’ve found the JavaScript build tooling to be an obtuse, obscure mess ever since I first began to use it years ago. When that’s all a person knows, like many front-end developers I’ve met, then it’s taken for granted that this is a necessary evil. But when you’ve used clean, simple back-end CLI’s like dotnet or scaffolded your project’s pipeline with a Makefile, the wreckage that is JavaScript bundling and transpiling feels gross.

Yes, I know there are reasons it’s so messy, and I’m grateful that folks made these tools to bridge the gap between the leading edge of JavaScript development and lagging browser support. esbuild makes me hopeful that we may, at long last, cull the outdated complexity in favor of transparent, Unixy build tooling.