Babel

Question 1

What is Babel?

Answer 1

Babel is a toolchain that is mainly used to convert ECMAScript 2015+ code into a backwards compatible version of JavaScript in current and older browsers or environments. Here are the main things Babel can do for you:

• Transform syntax
• Polyfill features that are missing in your target environment (through a third-party polyfill such as core-js)
• Source code transformations (codemods)
• And more! (check out these videos for inspiration)

Question 2

What is a Plug-in?

Answer 2

A software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. When a program supports plug-ins, it enables customization.[1]

A theme or skin is a preset package containing additional or changed graphical appearance details, achieved by the use of a graphical user interface (GUI) that can be applied to specific software and websites to suit the purpose, topic, or tastes of different users to customize the look and feel of a piece of computer software or an operating system front-end GUI (and window managers).

Question 3

What is a Webpack loader?

Answer 3

Loaders are transformations that are applied to the source code of a module. They allow you to pre-process files as you import or “load” them. Thus, loaders are kind of like “tasks” in other build tools and provide a powerful way to handle front-end build steps. Loaders can transform files from a different language (like TypeScript) to JavaScript or load inline images as data URLs. Loaders even allow you to do things like import CSS files directly from your JavaScript modules!

Question 4

How can you make Babel and Webpack work together?

Answer 4

Babel Loader

This package allows transpiling JavaScript files using Babel and webpack.

npm install -D babel-loader @babel/core @babel/preset-env webpack