If the goal is to not have apps be too large, you probably don't want to send the full variable and function names and all of the comments over the wire every time someone loads a webpage. That would be a very inefficient use of bandwidth, wouldn't it?

[–] aeshna_cyanea@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don't we have compression built into http already?

[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 1 points 23 hours ago

I guess it’s easier and safer to make a string replace for each function name beforehand than hoping the compression algorithm will figure that out.

Also, as SpaceCowboy points out, comments are completely useless for the final web page. There’s no need to even compress them.

[–] stetech@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I’d rather take a compile step than having no type safety in JS, even as a user.

[–] NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Except... the compilation step doesn't add type safety to JS.

As an aside, type safety hasn't been something I truly miss in JS, despite how often it's mentioned.

[–] Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think they are talking about typescript which is compiled into javascript

[–] NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Ok, that could be true. I assumed they meant the "building" phase that some frameworks go through.