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babeljspolyfillses6-shim

Does babel need es6-shim?

I mentioned on Twitter that I was moving from es6-shim to babel. Someone else mentioned:

the shims are still needed even with babel. they fix broken builtins, ones babel's output uses.

So:

  1. Does babel need es6-shim or similar?

  2. If it does, why doesn't babel require these things as a dependency?

Answers with references preferred over 'yes / no' with no supporting arguments!

Solution

  • Babel, at its core, does a single thing: convert syntax from one form to another.

    Some of Babel's syntax transformations introduce dependencies on ES6 library functionality. It doesn't concern itself with how that functionality got there because:

    • The system might already provide it
    • The user might only want to load specific pieces of a library
    • There are many polyfills and the user might have a specific one it wants to use.

    It is the developers job to ensure that the transpiled code is running in an environment where all the functions it needs actually exist.

    • Babel should work fine with es6-shim if you'd like to keep using it.

    • Babel also exposes babel/polyfill as a dead simple way to load a polyfill, which loads core-js, another polyfill like es6-shim. Just:

      require('babel/polyfill');