IE11 + webpack 2 + preact/preact-compat

After switching to preact-compat/preact I get this error in IE11 making the app unusable (works of course in all other browser vendors):

SCRIPT1028: Expected identifier, string or number
// I get this also if devtool is set to *source-map
SCRIPT5007: Unable to get property 'call' of undefined or null reference 

The latter is specific to webpack 2, I think, at least, it’s webpack 2 that creates the call method. Seems like a module is missing.

The code for the app is split into 4 files: init.js vendor.js common.js and app.js, The first error points to vendor.js i.e. modules from node_modules and points to the last line of this code (rest of code ommitted):

// make react think we're react.
let VNode = __webpack_require__.i(__WEBPACK_IMPORTED_MODULE_1_preact__["h"])('a', null).constructor;
VNode.prototype.$$typeof = REACT_ELEMENT_TYPE;
VNode.prototype.preactCompatUpgraded = false;
VNode.prototype.preactCompatNormalized = false;

Object.defineProperty(VNode.prototype, 'type', {
    get() { return this.nodeName; },

I am using:

"preact": "^7.2.0",
"preact-compat": "^3.13.1",

NOTE: If I remove the preact-compat alias, and use react, it works.

[ephys]

That’s fair enough! Sindresorhus does have very good points in his explanation of why he doesn’t pre-transpile his packages.

[developit]

Yup - plus I think we’re going to see more and more of that now that Node supports nearly all of ES2015. It’d be a shame to lose Webpack’s original value - being able to use Node modules in the browser. Hopefully some solution catches on 😃