Considering this is just a source code dump and call for possible contributors I'm disappointed it was even posted to Hacker News. Rome is not ready at all for public consumption. I wanted it open sourced so I could work with other tooling authors and contributors.

Would you mind commenting on what it intends to be and what its value propositions would be when it's eventually ready for public consumption? An opinionated all-in-one platform?

It says so right in the readme. It's a formatter, linter, bundler, compiler(transpiler?) all in one.

I’m looking for something more specific than that. To go to such great lengths, the value propositions have to be more than just bundling a few things together. (And I did read the project philosophy section.)

If you’ve used Metro or Webpack before there is very little explaining to do. The existing tooling is bloated, fragmented (think 40k deps) and slow, and the experience of sewing it all together and keeping it in one piece extremely frustrating.

I don't think "less bloated/fragmented/slow Webpack and co" is what sebmck intends its USP to be. It sounds more like he expects there to be some advantages to arise specifically from a single tool doing everything related to processing source code, e.g. the linter being able to catch bugs by also being aware of how code will end up after bundling.

It would be interesting to see examples of specific such advantages that could be gained, because I'm having a hard time thinking of any.

I have, but there’s still a lot of explaining to do. E.g., what’s the extensibility story? To do anything remotely useful with webpack you need to install a million loaders and plugins, but the plugin architecture also lets you do a lot that can’t be done with opinionated bundlers. So, what’s Rome’s approach to this? Enumerating existing tooling’s problems does not automatically guarantee something better.

The author has commented that this isn't yet ready for public consumption, but is instead just a call for other possible contributors to the project. So:

1. Everything you seem to be asking for seems like it is not relevant at this point in the project's lifecycle. 2. IMO people who are capable of providing good contributions don't actually need what you are asking for. They can review the README as is, review the source code, etc.

In short, patience.

I think Deno has the same concept.

I remember many years back uploading a module to CPAN at version 0.001001 with docs that said "actual docs not written yet, this release was made so other cpan authors I was talking to could experiment more easily".

Two days later I got a one-star review on the now-defunct cpanratings site complaining about the lack of documentation.

Seriously? I can't think of a better way to 'call for possible contributors'.

I’m pretty sure they meant reaching directly out to other tooling authors, rather than the general public

It's a public repo under a Facebook org; it's bound to be picked up on Reddit if it hasn't been already.

Personally, HN would be my go-to if I had a project to show and for which I was hoping for some high-quality collaboration.

If by 'reaching directly out' you mean contacting specific people, then it shouldn't be a public repo. Like I said, it's under a Facebook org, of course others will find it.

I don't think HN is general public

Well it wasn't built in a day.

I don’t think you have read the current Version. Hereby the first two paragraphs:

“ Rome is an experimental JavaScript toolchain. It includes a compiler, linter, formatter, bundler, testing framework and more. It aims to be a comprehensive tool for anything related to the processing of JavaScript source code.

Rome is not a collection of existing tools. All components are custom and use no third-party dependencies.”

What does it compile JavaScript to though? WebAssembly or native code?

It looks like it's compiling TypeScript/Flow and newer JS features into more standard JS. Part transpiling.

Compiler here probably means transpiler. Like Babel. Supporting new ECMAScript stuff, transpiling it to ES3/ES5 or whatever, so you can use it in IE6, or on NodeJS 8.

> Compiler here probably means transpiler.

A transpiler is a type of compiler, so it's fine to just call it a "compiler".

'Transpiler' adds useful extra information and context though. It's like it's fine to just say 'animal' but it's a bit more useful with more information to say 'cow'.

That just means you didn't read it well enough.

Yes, but hopefully done a bit better than before. Maybe the wheel will actually come out round this time? :)

Of course none of this would be needed if we could just use a programming language that wasn't shit, but before that's possible, things like Rome will keep surfacing. It is somewhat amusing to observe, even if you're blessed with not having to touch it.

The problem is more with browsers, than the language itself. Need for transpilation comes from the fact that you don’t control your env and browsers lag behind/are inconsistent. Need for splitting and bundling because we can only specify file resources to be loaded.

Sometimes when the problem is hard you have to "Embrace the yak shave". I think I heard Ian Hickson(hixie) say that.

This only replaces about 325 js dependencies. So you are right, it doesn’t do anything. To get to the point of having any functionality, we have to wait till it replaces 7,967

Where did I say it doesnt do anything?

Nm. That was my poor attempt at some js humour

I laughed inside. I mean cried...