JavaScript: Functional Programming for JavaScript Developers

Transpilers

Transpiling is a technique that combines both compilation and transformation. The idea is to write ES6-compatible code and use a tool that transpiles this code into a valid and equivalent ES5 code. We will be looking at the most complete and popular transpiler for ES6 called Babel (https://babeljs.io/).

Babel can be used in various ways. You can install it as a node module and invoke it from the command line or import it as a script in your web page. Babel's setup is exhaustive and well-documented at https://babeljs.io/docs/setup/. Babel also has a great Read-Eval-Print-Loop (REPL). We will Babel REPL for most of the examples in this chapter. An in-depth understanding of various ways in which Babel can be used is out of the scope of ...