Re: Non-bootstrappable NPM packages

[Jelle Licht]

Timothy Sample <address@hidden> writes:

[snip]

> I’ve come to think that bootstrapping JavaScript might be easier than it
> looks.  As time goes on, Node gets better at the newer JavaScript
> features.  This removes the need for things like Babel or Rollup, since
> with some care, Node can run the source directly with out any
> transformations or bundling.  That being said, TypeScript looks to be a
> major issue, as it is used in many fundamental JavaScript packages and
> it is not bootstrappable.

Very recently (IE about 94 minutes ago), I found out something
interesting that might be helpful; Sucrase[0] is, among other things, a
typescript transpiler that does not do any type checking, and it only
has some runtime dependencies.

I created some “fiio”-packages as well [1] , and I have confirmed that
it actually works! My next step was of course to compile TypeScript
proper, and this worked with one tiny snag that I reported at [2]. After
manually fixing these problems in the TypeScript source tree, I was able
to transpile the TypeScript sources using guix-packaged
`node-sucrase-bootstrap'.

> I’m not sure in what capacity I want to pursue this.  It’s been sitting
> dormant on my computer for while, so I thought sharing it would be
> better than letting it fall by the wayside.  I hope it proves useful one
> way or another.
>
> If you got this far, thanks for reading!  :)
Thank you for sending this informative email :)
>
>
> -- Tim

[0]: https://github.com/alangpierce/sucrase
[1]: https://paste.debian.net/1092893/
[2]: https://github.com/alangpierce/sucrase/issues/464