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Use Vite instead, it has very nice developer experience. Webpack is a "legacy" bundler, while it is supported, is shouldn't really be used in new projects if yo

by no_way 5y ago

Use Vite instead, it has very nice developer experience. Webpack is a "legacy" bundler, while it is supported, is shouldn't really be used in new projects if you really value your sanity.

krono 5y ago
Webpack is under active development though, nothing legacy about it as far as I'm aware. Are you referring to abandoned third-party plugins maybe? Vite and all the other bundlers are really awesome, but Webpack's strenght - and I think this may also be the root of the issues you seem to be having with the tool - is that there's almost no magic and barely any handholding. Freedom and reliability at the cost of having to build your own configuration (it's just dumping plugin config objects in an array, really not difficult).
- 01acheru 5y ago
  > it's just dumping plugin config objects in an array, really not difficult Until you eject a CRA :)
  - krono 5y ago
    Which is the cherry on top for those types of self-chastisement fetishists who willingly put themselves at the mercy of CRA ;-)
    - bredren 5y ago
      Check out the CRACO project. Allows config of CRA w o ejecting.
      - mitemte 5y ago
        Vite is so much better, IMO. Quicker too, since it uses esbuild in dev mode.
- no_way 5y ago
  I have done manual configs from scratch in Rollup, even wrote bunch of plugins for stuff like custom css class minifying and web worker support, so no I don't need handholding :) Setting it all up was even fun, everything was well documented and clear, with Webpack on the other hand, you only have fun if you like pain.
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  > there's almost no magic That depends entirely on your definition of “magic”. Needing a specific incantation of seven different plugins and rules, that are often conflicting and incomprehensible, to get a basic project to build, is the same as magic to me. I assume you mean magic == conventions or implicit behavior. I’ll take that over the Webpack mess any day.
  - krono 5y ago
    Magic as in runtime hacks and precompiled semi-proprietary rust binaries. Neither of which are necessarily negatives of course! Only thing is that for every minute gained from those speedy rust builds, I lost five more on debugging stuff that used to work fine with Babel + having to learn this new language to write replacements for now unsupported plugins :)
tiborsaas 5y ago
> Webpack is a "legacy" bundler How did you end up with this assessment? I'm not a fan either, but it's still very popular, I doubt it will go away in the next 5 years.
- no_way 5y ago
  It won't go away, it will still be supported and used for many years, but majority of new projects today won't use it. Brief history: Rollup dramatically improved bundler plugin and ES modules situation, then came new super fast bundlers like Esbuild and finally solutions combining both like Vite. Webpack is still playing catch up with that. There is literally zero reasons to choose clunky, slow Webpack configs, while alternatives exist, unless you have a legacy codebase and migrating is not an option.
  - howdydoo 5y ago
    > literally zero reasons What about module federation? Has any other bundler implemented that?
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      It's a relatively minor feature used by relatively few people.
    - tiborsaas 5y ago
      Do you know any success stories with that?
      - howdydoo 5y ago
        I haven't heard any, but I haven't gone looking either. I'm just saying there's at least literally one reason to use webpack for new code.
pferdone 5y ago
I seriously don't get the hatred Webpack receives. Calling it legacy when it introduced stuff like module federation is unfair to say the least. Just because a lot of people use CRA or some "zero config" bundler, or because esbuild etc are picking up momentum, doesn't mean it's bad. The documentation is actually really good IMO.
- spartanatreyu 5y ago
  The problem with using something like webpack is that you can't use it for something quick. You can't dip into the documentation for the one thing you're trying to do, you have to spend time reading a large chunk of the documentation, then going to forums and such to try an understand the history of how that one thing you're trying to do has changed over webpack's history. Then 5 months later when you're doing it for another project, you have to re-read all that documentation again because one other thing is different. Compare that waste of time and effort to: A developer is now unavailable and you are taking over the project. The project uses a modern build-system/module-loader/etc... You need to change one thing to the way to project is built. You don't have to learn an uber nested spaghetti config file that looks like a domain-specific language. You just read the miminal configuration the previous developer left you and now you know what to change, or how to add the one thing you need to do. You've now saved days of work.
- alluro2 5y ago
  I agree that hatred is probably somewhat unwarranted, and flexibility and support Webpack has is immense - but, based on my experience, I understand some of the people and where it's coming from. I just replaced Webpack with Vite, in a 2yo React project, with relatively standard webpack config (scss, fonts, assets copying, minify etc). I was able to remove 24 total devDependencies packages, including the whole of babel and its related ones, bunch of webpack plugins that broke our build on every packages upgrade (e.g. to Webpack 4, then again for Webpack 5) etc etc. We now have nothing to do with babel, hard-to-understand plugins that someone added since it was solving a build error, nothing to do with webpack, just 1 almost non-existent config file, instant HMR, and 3x faster build...
- rhengles 5y ago
nicoburns 5y ago
I'd argue that Vite's still pretty immature. It's great if you can stick within what works with it, but webpack is still the gold standard in terms of compatibility and features, and I suspect that will be the case for another couple of years while the native code bundlers (esbuild, swc, etc) catch up with their JS counterparts.
TheFragenTaken 5y ago
> Webpack is a "legacy" bundler What a weird thing to say. I feel like people say this because they don't understand it's uses, and it's versatility.

by no_way 5y ago

Use Vite instead, it has very nice developer experience. Webpack is a "legacy" bundler, while it is supported, is shouldn't really be used in new projects if you really value your sanity.

krono 5y ago

Webpack is under active development though, nothing legacy about it as far as I'm aware. Are you referring to abandoned third-party plugins maybe? Vite and all the other bundlers are really awesome, but Webpack's strenght - and I think this may also be the root of the issues you seem to be having with the tool - is that there's almost no magic and barely any handholding. Freedom and reliability at the cost of having to build your own configuration (it's just dumping plugin config objects in an array, really not difficult).

01acheru 5y ago
> it's just dumping plugin config objects in an array, really not difficult Until you eject a CRA :)
- krono 5y ago
  Which is the cherry on top for those types of self-chastisement fetishists who willingly put themselves at the mercy of CRA ;-)
  - bredren 5y ago
    Check out the CRACO project. Allows config of CRA w o ejecting.
    - mitemte 5y ago
      Vite is so much better, IMO. Quicker too, since it uses esbuild in dev mode.
no_way 5y ago
I have done manual configs from scratch in Rollup, even wrote bunch of plugins for stuff like custom css class minifying and web worker support, so no I don't need handholding :) Setting it all up was even fun, everything was well documented and clear, with Webpack on the other hand, you only have fun if you like pain.
ricardobeat 5y ago
> there's almost no magic That depends entirely on your definition of “magic”. Needing a specific incantation of seven different plugins and rules, that are often conflicting and incomprehensible, to get a basic project to build, is the same as magic to me. I assume you mean magic == conventions or implicit behavior. I’ll take that over the Webpack mess any day.
- krono 5y ago
  Magic as in runtime hacks and precompiled semi-proprietary rust binaries. Neither of which are necessarily negatives of course! Only thing is that for every minute gained from those speedy rust builds, I lost five more on debugging stuff that used to work fine with Babel + having to learn this new language to write replacements for now unsupported plugins :)

tiborsaas 5y ago

> Webpack is a "legacy" bundler How did you end up with this assessment? I'm not a fan either, but it's still very popular, I doubt it will go away in the next 5 years.

no_way 5y ago
It won't go away, it will still be supported and used for many years, but majority of new projects today won't use it. Brief history: Rollup dramatically improved bundler plugin and ES modules situation, then came new super fast bundlers like Esbuild and finally solutions combining both like Vite. Webpack is still playing catch up with that. There is literally zero reasons to choose clunky, slow Webpack configs, while alternatives exist, unless you have a legacy codebase and migrating is not an option.
- howdydoo 5y ago
  > literally zero reasons What about module federation? Has any other bundler implemented that?
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    It's a relatively minor feature used by relatively few people.
  - tiborsaas 5y ago
    Do you know any success stories with that?
    - howdydoo 5y ago
      I haven't heard any, but I haven't gone looking either. I'm just saying there's at least literally one reason to use webpack for new code.

pferdone 5y ago

I seriously don't get the hatred Webpack receives. Calling it legacy when it introduced stuff like module federation is unfair to say the least. Just because a lot of people use CRA or some "zero config" bundler, or because esbuild etc are picking up momentum, doesn't mean it's bad. The documentation is actually really good IMO.

spartanatreyu 5y ago
The problem with using something like webpack is that you can't use it for something quick. You can't dip into the documentation for the one thing you're trying to do, you have to spend time reading a large chunk of the documentation, then going to forums and such to try an understand the history of how that one thing you're trying to do has changed over webpack's history. Then 5 months later when you're doing it for another project, you have to re-read all that documentation again because one other thing is different. Compare that waste of time and effort to: A developer is now unavailable and you are taking over the project. The project uses a modern build-system/module-loader/etc... You need to change one thing to the way to project is built. You don't have to learn an uber nested spaghetti config file that looks like a domain-specific language. You just read the miminal configuration the previous developer left you and now you know what to change, or how to add the one thing you need to do. You've now saved days of work.
alluro2 5y ago
I agree that hatred is probably somewhat unwarranted, and flexibility and support Webpack has is immense - but, based on my experience, I understand some of the people and where it's coming from. I just replaced Webpack with Vite, in a 2yo React project, with relatively standard webpack config (scss, fonts, assets copying, minify etc). I was able to remove 24 total devDependencies packages, including the whole of babel and its related ones, bunch of webpack plugins that broke our build on every packages upgrade (e.g. to Webpack 4, then again for Webpack 5) etc etc. We now have nothing to do with babel, hard-to-understand plugins that someone added since it was solving a build error, nothing to do with webpack, just 1 almost non-existent config file, instant HMR, and 3x faster build...
rhengles 5y ago

nicoburns 5y ago

I'd argue that Vite's still pretty immature. It's great if you can stick within what works with it, but webpack is still the gold standard in terms of compatibility and features, and I suspect that will be the case for another couple of years while the native code bundlers (esbuild, swc, etc) catch up with their JS counterparts.

TheFragenTaken 5y ago

> Webpack is a "legacy" bundler What a weird thing to say. I feel like people say this because they don't understand it's uses, and it's versatility.