I'm also against building and compiling (I work with Python and Ruby on the backend) but there were good reasons to have those steps, at least in the past and p

I'm also against building and compiling (I work with Python and Ruby on the backend) but there were good reasons to have those steps, at least in the past and probably still now. Short and very incomplete list, feel free to reply and add points: * slow network, especially on mobile * reduce the size of the download by minifying * reduce the number of calls by bundling files in a single one * Inconsistent JS and HTML feature support among browsers * transpiling to a common older version of JS * add polyfills to implement missing features * add widgets to implement fucked up default implementations or widgets that are nearly impossible to standardize (date and time pickers might need tons of features and are projects on their own)