3 ms·

> Unless you've worked on frontend at Google at some point in the past 20 years, it's unlikely that you've ever encountered the Closure Compiler Unless, of cou

> Unless you've worked on frontend at Google at some point in the past 20 years, it's unlikely that you've ever encountered the Closure Compiler Unless, of course you were at the forefront of frontend stuff like a decade ago and Closure Compiler was the absolute best for a long time at dead-tree elimination and compressing JS artifacts. Or, you're a developer using ClojureScript. Or... > It occupied a similar niche to TypeScript, but TypeScript has absolutely, definitively won. Huh? The Closure Compiler is so much more than just "JavaScript but with types". It also provides minification, provided a namespacing system, additional standard library and such.

yankput 3y ago
> The Closure Compiler is so much more than just "JavaScript but with types". It also provides minification, provided a namespacing system, additional standard library and such. That’s literally what the article is about if you read a few sentences more
- capableweb 3y ago
  Ok, maybe take that up with the article author that they're being inconsistent then?
  - arp242 3y ago
    "Similar", not "exactly identical in every regard".
holoduke 3y ago
Exactly. We build a large SPA back in 2008. Used closure compiler just for modulizing the code base and minification for production. It had some linting as well. The software still running today only last year moved to parceljs.
Waterluvian 3y ago
I think it’s surprising to some who live and breathe a domain just how niche many parts of it really are.
paulddraper 3y ago
There is a 100% chance you know about the Closure Compiler if you did any research on minification pre-2012.
foobarbazetc 3y ago
Closure library/compiler was the only real way to write a large SPA back in 2012+. You had access to an amazing compiler with a standard library that was like having every npm module you could ever need but written by Google and well maintained without the security risks. We still use it, and the only real “wish” we have is maybe if the jsdoc “type system” could just be replaced by TypeScript while maintaining all the rest of the library/compiler.
- klodolph 3y ago
  You can write TypeScript and automatically generate Closure type annotations for compiling / minifying, using a tool called tsickle. I am aware this is possible but I have heard that getting a good tooling experience out of this, outside Google, is difficult.

yankput 3y ago

> The Closure Compiler is so much more than just "JavaScript but with types". It also provides minification, provided a namespacing system, additional standard library and such. That’s literally what the article is about if you read a few sentences more

capableweb 3y ago
Ok, maybe take that up with the article author that they're being inconsistent then?
- arp242 3y ago
  "Similar", not "exactly identical in every regard".

holoduke 3y ago

Exactly. We build a large SPA back in 2008. Used closure compiler just for modulizing the code base and minification for production. It had some linting as well. The software still running today only last year moved to parceljs.

Waterluvian 3y ago

I think it’s surprising to some who live and breathe a domain just how niche many parts of it really are.

paulddraper 3y ago

There is a 100% chance you know about the Closure Compiler if you did any research on minification pre-2012.

foobarbazetc 3y ago

Closure library/compiler was the only real way to write a large SPA back in 2012+. You had access to an amazing compiler with a standard library that was like having every npm module you could ever need but written by Google and well maintained without the security risks. We still use it, and the only real “wish” we have is maybe if the jsdoc “type system” could just be replaced by TypeScript while maintaining all the rest of the library/compiler.

klodolph 3y ago
You can write TypeScript and automatically generate Closure type annotations for compiling / minifying, using a tool called tsickle. I am aware this is possible but I have heard that getting a good tooling experience out of this, outside Google, is difficult.