Idea: Use Rollup instead of Parcel?

What is wrong?

Where does it happen?

How do we replicate the issue?

How important is this (1-5)?

Expected behavior (i.e. solution)

Other Comments

Rollup is a bundler not unlike Parcel, but much more powerful (IMO). It can generate ES6 Modules (for webpack & environments that support them) and UMD files (which work in browsers and Node.js require()) with a single command.

So let’s say we generate brain.mjs and brain.js. After that, use the following in package.json:

"main": "./dist/brain.js",
"browser": "./dist/brain.min.js",
"module": "./dist/brain.mjs"

Webpack, Rollup, and Parcel will automatically use brain.mjs. Node.js will automatically use brain.js (unless experimental modules is active). Web browsers can keep using brain.min.js.

Rollup almost always produces smaller bundles than Webpack or Parcel. And bower could be removed.

I’m willing to work on porting to Rollup by myself; I just want to know if the maintainers are willing to use it.

[robertleeplummerjr]

I do want to use some caution with regard to building node files. We are currently developing with node and there is something beautiful about changing tons of stuff, and clicking a play button and it just work.

There are, however, caution(s) to be had when working with transpilers such as GPU.js, or transpiler outputs, via babel, which are disgusting (yes, Babel guys, I hope you are reading), to other transpilers, like GPU.js, which are beautiful, (tl;dr shameless plug…

…but I’ve got the unit tests to prove it!

But, in their defense, we’re working with a subset of javascript rather than… ALL of it, but I will not take back the rant! end tl;dr)

…that turn javascript into GPU code. There are side effects at times, many of which are handled in GPU.js, BUT we can only go so far, as the garbage that most transpilers output simply violate the laws of all things sacred… and that can be detected and ran on the GPU.

That being said, although es6 is nice (specifically imports and exports) if that is all we’re (and we just removed them) working towards, I’m not sold, as it just waists time.

Our current build system needs to be evaluated as well, as there may be side effects with it, it is just that transpilers specifically, and specifically the ones in babel, are the ones that have given me the most trouble.

[Symbitic]

I actually made quite a bit a little while ago, but all the commits since then make it a little difficult to update and merge. I will try soon, if I have time.