I was assuming that the intention was to eventually provide runtime support. If that's correct, then I think we'd be in agreement about what "static" means? B

I was assuming that the intention was to eventually provide runtime support. If that's correct, then I think we'd be in agreement about what "static" means? Babel and all sorts of other compilers can run in the browser. Whereas webpack is mainly concerned with the text that you transmit and could not "by nature" be made to do its job in the browser (because then it would be too late). That's the difference I had in mind.