CHAPTER 2
JavaScript Development Tools
While you can write JavaScript with nothing more than an editor and a browser (as
we saw in the previous chapter), JavaScript developers rely on some useful develop‐
ment tools. Furthermore, because we are focusing on ES6 for the rest of this book,
we’ll need a way to convert our ES6 code to portable ES5 code. The tools discussed in
this chapter are very common, and you are likely to encounter them in any open
source project or software development team. They are:
• Git, a version control tool that helps you manage your project as it grows, and
collaborate with other developers.
• Node, which allows you to run JavaScript outside of the browser (and comes with
npm, which gives you access to the rest of the tools on this list).
• Gulp, a build tool that automates common development tasks (Grunt is a popular
alternative).
• Babel, a transcompiler that converts ES6 code to portable ES5 code.
• ESLint, a linter that helps you avoid common mistakes and makes you a better
programmer!
Don’t think of this chapter as a distraction from the topic at hand (JavaScript). Think
of it as a practical introduction to some important tools and techniques that are com‐
monly used in JavaScript development.
Writing ES6 Today
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that ES6 (aka Harmony, aka Java‐
Script 2015) is an exciting, delightful evolution in the history of JavaScript. The bad
news is that the world isn’t quite ready for it. That doesn’t mean you can’t use it now,
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