Embracing JavaScript Tools

24 April 2020

ClojureScript Team

ClojureScript 1.10.741 includes a new streamlined way to integrate with the existing JavaScript ecosystem - the bundle target. With this target, the output of the ClojureScript compiler can be immediately handed off to a JavaScript bundler like Webpack, Metro, or any other build tool that understands Node.js require . ClojureScript projects using this new target can freely integrate libraries from node_modules without handwritten externs or additional configuration, yet still fully leverage REPL-driven development and advanced compilation for the optimizable parts of their application.

While the impact on ease of development for ClojureScript projects is obviously significant, we believe that the benefits for the ClojureScript ecosystem are even more exciting. You can now publish ClojureScript libraries that depend directly on the JavaScript ecosystem without additional ceremony and be confident that the whole community can benefit regardless of what other JavaScript and ClojureScript build tools they may prefer.

If you want to cut to the chase and walk through a tutorial, head over to the new guide. For some history and context, read on.

Over the years we’ve implemented and shipped a variety of features to help integration with the JavaScript ecosystem, but the end result has, in truth, felt more like a patchwork of solutions than something cut from whole cloth. Some of this can be attributed to trying to work around JavaScript existing tooling rather than embracing it. ClojureScript has invested heavily in the advanced compilation capabilities of the decade-old Google Closure Compiler project, and it seemed natural to pursue processing Node modules through it.

But after nearly three years since we first shipped Node module processing via Closure, it’s apparent that too few of the most popular libraries can be subjected to advanced optimizations. While we still believe there’s promise here, the ClojureScript community will have to show the rest of the world the way by developing compelling JavaScript libraries that can be readily consumed by popular JavaScript tools, yet still be subjected to Closure’s phenomenal tree shaking and code splitting when building with ClojureScript. The success of projects like Rollup.js has shown that JavaScript developers are not adverse to adhering to a stricter style if it leads to significant benefits. In the meantime we need a simpler and, yes, easier way to get things done.

In António Nuno Monteiro’s original post about Node module processing there’s a fairly short paragraph about how under Node.js we actually generate Node.js require statements for libraries we know are coming from node_modules . This was a fantastic idea resulting in a very idiomatic experience when interacting with Node.js. Over the next couple of years it became apparent that using ClojureScript for Node.js was often simpler than web development. No longer, the bundle target approach embraces the fact that nearly all modern JavaScript dependency resolution is either Node.js require or ES6 import.

Still, this only solves part of the problem. We need to apply advanced optimizations to ClojureScript generated JavaScript. Which leads us to something we call "externs inference". One of the tradeoffs with Closure’s compilation model is that integrating libraries not intended for Closure consumption requires a manual and error-prone process of writing externs - files which prevent Closure from renaming properties and declarations from libraries it will not actually see. Because of an early decision by Rich Hickey to mark global variables in ClojureScript as such, and the fact that Clojure provides a simple but effective type propagation algorithm across a local scope which ClojureScript also implements, tracking the usage of "foreign" values is not as tricky as it would seem.

Combining our approach for Node.js and externs inference leads us directly to the bundle target. Of course now it all probably seems pretty obvious - but juggling various design goals can easily obscure the simple answer. By taking two distinct things - on the one hand, ClojureScript, on the other, JavaScript tools - and actually allowing them to remain distinct - we can arrive at something more than the sum of the parts. At the same time, none of these choices precludes passing everything through Closure Compiler if more JavaScript libraries begin adopting a code style amenable to aggressive dead code elimination.

This feature is the result of many discussions and inspiration from some great projects in the ClojureScript community - in particular re-natal and shadow-cljs.