Pick language and technology stack for the project

[nejdaw]

We need to pick technologies that we can use to build our plugin. Particularly we need to choose:

• language
• build tool
• testing framework (unit / system tests)

This story depends on the outcome of #5

[nejdaw]

My proposition: Babel

Language: ECMAScript 6 (newest version of JavaScript)
Build tool: WebPack
Compiler: Babel (compiles ECMAScript 6 to ECMAScript 5)
Testing framework: Mocha, Karma

Sample chrome extension using Babel: https://github.com/schovi/webpack-chrome-extension

[balawama]

Language:

• Dart (https://www.dartlang.org/)
• CoffeeScript II (https://github.com/michaelficarra/CoffeeScriptRedux)

Build tool:

• Pub (https://www.dartlang.org/tools/pub/get-started.html)
• Brunch (http://brunch.io/)

Testing:

• Dart based (https://pub.dartlang.org/packages/test)
• Beast (http://beastjavascript.github.io/TestSuite/)

[nejdaw]

Some people consider coffee script to be less relevant in when they can use ES6 (source).

Dart, on the other hand, seems to be an interesting idea.

[mkordas]

My proposition is ScalaJS with SBT - it's the technology I'd like to learn anyway.

[nejdaw]

OK, so the final decision is Babel.

[balawama]

What about build tool? Do we want to raise new issue for that?

[nejdaw]

@balawama I did some digging and I think that WebPack will be sufficient as a build tool. So to summarise:

1. Runtime environment: node.js
2. Compiler: babel
3. Build tool: webpack
4. Tests: lets start with Mocha and then replace it if something is wrong

This issue is closed but I will create new issue to set up sample project with stub js file and sample test

[nmccready]

Not really my business but webpack has some serious issues with css sourcemaps . Thought I might save you the pain.

webpack-contrib/style-loader#55
webpack-contrib/css-loader#29

We switched to browserify which still is not perfect as debugging coffeescript in the browser stinks. (that was easier to handle in webpack)

IE browserify problem. browserify/browserify#1233

Browserify/Webpack also integrates quite nicely into brunch.io as well. Also gulp works well with either too. But if you go gulp use 4.0 branch.. way easier.

https://www.npmjs.com/package/browserify-brunch

[nejdaw]

Hi @nmccready
Thanks for contribution!

We will consider it when we finally find some time to work on the project.