How to identify a macros

Right now we identify a macros if the import/require source string matches this regex: /[./]macros(\.js)?$/

@gaearon mentioned:

The only thing I don’t quite like is the .macros naming, maybe we can come up with an alternative suffix.

@threepointone suggested:

The ideal solution would be to have separate syntax, e.g. importMacros, but that’s likely never going to happen Another option is to use a webpack inspired ‘babel-macros?css’, but that straight up looks alien Alternate words off the top of my head - mods, plugs, socks(?), defines

So then I said:

I want to make sure that existing tooling will work as much as I can so I want to avoid anything too weird looking… 🤔

I don’t mind macros myself, but happy to consider other names 👍

To which @gaearon replied:

The thing is, it also need to be explicit enough that you wouldn’t mistake it from a regular import. Because otherwise it’ll be a debugging nightmare for the person who doesn’t know what’s going on.

Then @suchipi suggested:

Flow has import type, and sweet.js uses import ... for syntax. Is adding a similar syntax extension to babylon going too far for something like this?

And finally I said:

I’d be fine with it if babylon supported it via a plugin, then people could just include a preset we make (and CRA could include it in its own config theoretically). I like:

import macros glam from 'glam.macros'

But I’m open to pretty much anything else.

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So now that we’re all caught up, let’s discuss the options. Other people I’d love to get input from are: @hzoo, @loganfsmyth, and @jlongster 😄

Here are the options as I see them:

1. babylon plugin for new syntax
2. matching imports where the source matches a regex

Any other ideas?

[kentcdodds]

Yeah, I think that we should probably only have one (macro) and stick with that… Otherwise it will make things confusing.

[anikethsaha]

I find it very unlikely that something like this would make it to the TC39 ever (I don’t even know how that’d work) because it’s a compile-time thing

I guess the ecosystem need something named CT39 - Compile-Time 39 😁