Intro to modern JavaScript

a. Introduction to TC39 process and Babel

A brief introduction to JavaScript’s history, it’s specification and process of evolving the ECMAScript programming language. We explain the concept of code transpilation and take a look at the Babel playground.

b. List all ES2015+ features (w/o going into details)

In this section, we go through the latest ECMAScript features that have been added. We’ll cover core features like import / export syntax or fat arrow functions but also play around with proposals like optional chaining.

c. Introduction to Node.js

We’ll briefly explain the Node.js basics, create a simple http server and execute some basic code on the server side. This knowledge will be extremely helpful when doing front-end development work.

d. Explain dependency management and package managers

Here we’ll show available package management options, explain the difference between yarn and npm, and take a look at dependency tree descriptors such as yarn.lock, package-lock.json.

e. Configuring Babel

We’ll add Babel as a dependency and explain the different ways of using it. The next step would be to add appropriate plugins and presets. We will use babel via babel-node and refactor our existing code to match the latest standards.

f. Bundling JavaScript

As a final step in the course we’ll hook Babel pipeline into one of the most popular JS bundler – Webpack. We will also provide you with alternative bundlers like Rollup, Parcel or Metro for React Native.

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