Whoa, hey!
Welcome to my frontend laboratory where we're going to do something
that I honestly thought I would never do again.
Something bold!
Something...
maybe just a bit crazy.
We're going to write a modern frontend with zero build system.
Back-story time!
7 years ago I was talking about how modern JavaScript requires a build system.
I was shouting to the world that we needed to transition from creating JavaScript
and CSS files in a "public" directory towards building them
with a system, like Webpack or Vite.
These build systems were created
because browsers didn't support modern features that we wanted to use.
I'm talking about the import statement, const, the class syntax, and so on.
If you tried to run this kind of JavaScript in a browser,
you would have been greeted with sad error messages.
So, the build system would transpile (that's a fancy word for "convert")
that new looking JavaScript to old looking JavaScript, so it could run in the browser.
It would also combine JavaScript and CSS files, so we would have fewer requests,
it could create versioned filenames, process TypeScript and JSX, Sass, and much more.
These systems are incredibly powerful.
But they also add complexity and can slow down coding.
So I'm here, 7 years later to say that...
we might not need those build systems anymore!
In this tutorial, we're going to write all the modern JavaScript that we know and love...
but with zero build system, and no Node.
Just you and the browser: the way the Gods of the Internet intended it.
Now, I admit, doing this won't be the best option for every project.
If you want to use TypeScript, or you're using React, Vue or Next.js,
you'll probably still want a build system...
and you should probably use their build system.
Skipping a build system also means no automatic tree-shaking - if you know and care about that -
though we'll learn how that can still work.
For the most part, coding with and without a build system is identical,
but I'll point out the small differences along the way.
And if you're wondering about things like Sass preprocessors, or Tailwind,
you can totally use those and we'll see how.
The final site is also going to be as performant and fast as one built with a build system.
Okay, let's get to work!
Coding without a build system is a joy: no node or batteries required.
So you should absolutely download the course code from this page and code along with me.
After you unzip that file, you'll have a start/ directory with the same code that you see here.
Pop open this README.md file.
As usual, it holds all the setup details you'll need.
I've done most of them already.
The last step is to find your terminal, move into the project, and run:
symfony serve -d to use the symfony binary to start the built-in web server.
I'll hold "command", click and...
hello Mixed Vinyl!
But wow is this thing weird and ugly-looking.
This is a Symfony 6.3 project - the same project we've built in the Symfony series.
It has Doctrine installed...
but there's nothing particularly special about it, and right now,
it has literally zero CSS and JavaScript.
There's no assets/ directory and nothing hiding inside the public/ directory.
The first thing I want to explore is the reality
that our browser can handle more modern stuff than we might realize...
certainly much more than I realized a few months ago.
Let's see what all the hype is about by taking our browser
for a modern JavaScript test drive next.