What I like about not integrating the build-step as Deno does: You allow competition and the market comes up with great ideas like Vercel did with pkg.
Building TS projects is quite demanding and I doubt if one party monopolizes this important step and thinks it does the best job it will degenerate an ecosystem. Even the TS team says the build system is not the core of their work, they just have one for convenience but encourage the community to compete and complement. Integrating build systems is good for beginners who struggle with them but for the rest? IDK.
Or in other words, Deno wants to be more than just an opinionated node-Typescript-distribution nobody cares about but then they need to create this ecosystem and focus on the core (what's their core and value add other than repackaging node and TS would be the next discussion).
With integrating the build step they do the exact opposite, they shut-down an ecosystem before it can even start. There's a night and day difference between good and bad build systems and only competition and a rich ecosystem can bring up the best solutions.
FWIW, there're tons of ways to compile TS, every with different trade-offs and it's good that we have these options.
I know providing a fully baked compiler API isn’t high on their list (think babel). I couldn’t find any information from the Typescript team regarding anything you’ve stated about 3rd party build systems and the compiler being provided only for convenience.
Do you have anything you can point to from the team about this?
It's right in their wiki, "non-goal" number 4 in their TS Design Goals which is also referenced again in some issues:
[a non-goal] Provide an end-to-end build pipeline. Instead, make the system extensible so that external tools can use the compiler for more complex build workflows.
If it's good that we have these options, what Deno provides is just another option for us to choose from. I don't see how this is a shut-down for the ecosystem.
I don't think, Ryan wanted Deno to be just another build system for TypeScript but something a bit bigger. And even if it's meant as a build system there're much better options out just for this purpose.
Why anyone would look at the litany of mistakes that is npm and Node, then look at Deno and all of the same developers learning nothing except how to implement its "hurr durr URL loading code is cool" approach to security and think "this a good idea" is beyond me.
I appreciate Deno because I can ask job interview candidates what their thoughts are about it, and when candidates for senior positions don't point out any of the billion obvious reasons it's a stupid project for stupid people, it saves me a ton of time. Otherwise, it's a waste of time and effort, and all you have to do to convince yourself of that is look at the contribution history of the most prominent contributors on github.
I have never, not once, in my life as a developer wanted a project to die so badly.
Hiring people based on their ability to predict your own idiosyncratic hatreds of specific technologies is just a horrible idea. It also ensures your ideas never get challenged and you never improve.
> I appreciate Deno because I can ask job interview candidates what their thoughts are about it, and when candidates for senior positions don't point out any of the billion obvious reasons it's a stupid project for stupid people, it saves me a ton of time.
I hope you're either self employed, or that you run your own company. If not, this comment is a red flag for potential recruiters; you might want to consider editing it.
Building TS projects is quite demanding and I doubt if one party monopolizes this important step and thinks it does the best job it will degenerate an ecosystem. Even the TS team says the build system is not the core of their work, they just have one for convenience but encourage the community to compete and complement. Integrating build systems is good for beginners who struggle with them but for the rest? IDK.
Or in other words, Deno wants to be more than just an opinionated node-Typescript-distribution nobody cares about but then they need to create this ecosystem and focus on the core (what's their core and value add other than repackaging node and TS would be the next discussion).
With integrating the build step they do the exact opposite, they shut-down an ecosystem before it can even start. There's a night and day difference between good and bad build systems and only competition and a rich ecosystem can bring up the best solutions.
FWIW, there're tons of ways to compile TS, every with different trade-offs and it's good that we have these options.