Indeed. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if the build step were made mandatory, with the form of the code that browsers interpret decoupled from the one that programmer

Indeed. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if the build step were made mandatory, with the form of the code that browsers interpret decoupled from the one that programmers write, so that the former may evolve at a much slower rate without constraining developers too much. Of course, that would defeat the whole purpose of the ever-continuing TC39 standardization process, so it’s not going to happen.