Publishing in the JavaScript Ecosystem & Keeping Users Happy

(starting notes a little late)

• bunch of criteria and it depends.

• Module formats

  • defines a module

• Of course we should only support ESM.

• Package has a carbon footprint depending on the size of the bundle.

• Reduce publish size

  • only publish required files with package.json 's files field.

• DefinitelyTyped will reduce package size. lol

• TypeScript dist tags.

  • You can have a @variant (Private) on a package name @scope/<name>@variant when exporting a package.

• Provide ESM version of your package.

• Smaller modules

• Tree-shaking.

• Publishing a JS package:

  • Small package size
  • Observability with Open Trace (types.d.ts)
  • Support ESM and Common JS with multiple packages.

Notes by kevin

• speaker

  • three-vikram
  • #CascadiaJS (Private)

• publishing

  • browsers:
  • servers: nodejs, deno, etc
  • ns native: react, native, flutter
  • module formats: cjs, esm
  • sizes: publish, install, bundle
  • types: flow, typescript
  • debugging: source, sourcemap
  • observability: open*, etc

• criteria to consider

  • depends

• publishing criteria

  • why, how, what

• browser, why?

  • script on browser
  • isn't js support fragmented on browser
  • yes but
    • IE retired in 05/15/2022
    • safari competitive? (lol)

• server, why

  • nodejs most popular
  • deno
  • fragmentation?
    • web interoperable runtimes community group

• deno, how?

  • experimental npm support

• bun, how?

  • compatible?

• js native, why?

  • write javascript, ui framework create native apps
  • have limitation
  • perf tradeoffs, has become better

• module formats, why?

  • ...

• module formats, how?

  • supporting cjs/esm, you can use esm module wrapper
  • gen-esm-wrapper

• sizes (why)?

  • publish: pkg being published

  • install: node_modules on install

  • bundle: bundled artifact

  • why important?

    • load times
    • constrained environments (eg. serverless)

• reducing size

  • publish:
    • remove unecessary things in package.json
      • eg. move types to definitely typed
  • install
    • minimal dependencies
    • provide variant of pkg for resource-constraint environment
  • bundle
    • tree-shakeable code
      • named exports
    • publish esm version of pkg
    • remove side effects

• types (why)

  • ts popular
  • ecmascript proposal for type annotation

• debugging (why)

  • you have a language that compiles to js
    • source maps for debug

• observability (why)

  • help measure state of app

• observability (how)

  • add opentelemetry package

• conclusion

  • brwoser: support modern browser
  • server: nodejs with deno support
  • js native: depends
  • module formats: cjs+esm or esm only
  • sizes: aim small
  • types: publish typescript types
  • debuggign: provide sources
  • observability: add hook to open telemetry