If you're working on a project that just uses Webp...

# javascript

[David Herman]

If you're working on a project that just uses Webpack anyway, is there any benefit you get from using per-module granularity vs. whole-module granularity?

[David Herman]

I have a small-ish project but I did some local tests, and it seems like...

1. whole-module granularity compiles on par or slightly faster
2. whole-module granularity results in a smaller final JS file (maybe the Kotlin compiler is smarter about DCE than Webpack is?)

[David Herman]

Either way, I end up with a monolothic JS file at the end of the process

[turansky]

whole-program is very useful in case of worker - you won’t have no 2 (or more) different sets of dependencies

[turansky]

And whole-program bundle is more optimal (because of mangling?!)

[David Herman]

So whole-program actually has advantages over per-module? Even though per-module was made the default recently?

[turansky]

Yes

[David Herman]

OK thanks 🙂

[David Herman]

I was hoping that per-module would cut compile time down significantly but I wasn't seeing that. Not sure what a larger project looks like.

[turansky]

Only file-file compilation can be more effective:
1. Faster dev-server
2. Less bundle size in case of SPA (multiple entry points)
3. …

[David Herman]

Is that a valid granularity option? Or are you talking theoretical?

[turansky]

For now it’s feature request only

[David Herman]

Got it. Thank you for the detailed answer!

[turansky]

per-module looks like intermediate step to “file-to-file” compilation.
I hope 🙂

[CLOVIS]

My dream is ES6 support + file-to-file to support Vite fully 🫢

[CLOVIS]

Currently with per-module, Vite is already a much smoother experience than Webpack in my experience (faster, and uses a lot less memory)

[CLOVIS]

Vite's bundler (Rollup) makes ~20% smaller apps than Webpack (sample size of 1 though, so do your own test), which is comparable to Webpack + Google Closure Compiler (but the Closure compiler is extremely slow…)

[christophsturm]

are you using kotlin with vite? is that already possible?

[CLOVIS]

Depends what you call possible. I'm feeding the output of the per-module Kotlin compiler into Vite. It's far from unleashing Vite's full power, since it can't do its per-file magic, but it's already a better dev experience IMO than using Webpack—the benefits of using Rollup for prod are great

[CLOVIS]

If someone has the knowledge of how to transform that into a Gradle plugin, here's the setup: https://gitlab.com/opensavvy/decouple/-/blob/main/demo/web/build.gradle.kts#L25