The JavaScript Oxidation Compiler

(oxc.rs)

91 points | by modinfo 3 hours ago

12 comments

  • hu3 6 minutes ago
    I expected a coparison to `bun build` in the transformer TS -> JS part.

    But I guess it wouldn't be an apples to apples com parison because Bun can also run typescript directly.

  • pier25 2 hours ago
    All the Void Zero projects are super cool although I still wonder how they’re going to monetize all this.
    • rk06 2 hours ago
      they are going to use vite plus for monetization
  • root_axis 1 hour ago
    I'm surprised to see it's that much faster than SWC. Does anyone have any general details on how that performance is achieved?
  • wangzhongwang 1 hour ago
    Interesting to see more Rust-based JS tooling. The performance gains are real but I'm curious about the ecosystem compatibility - does it handle all the weird edge cases that existing tools have learned over the years?

    Also wondering if this could eventually replace parts of the webpack/vite pipeline or if it's more focused on the compilation step.

    • chronicom 1 minute ago
      The goal is for Vite to transition to tooling built on Oxc. They’ve been experimenting with Rolldown for a while now (also by voidzero and uses oxc) - https://vite.dev/guide/rolldown
  • apatheticonion 1 hour ago
    I wrote a simple multi threaded transpiler to transpile TypeScript to JavaScript using oxc in Rust. It could transpile 100k files in 3 seconds.

    It's blisteringly fast

  • sankalpmukim 1 hour ago
    I wonder why did it take so long for someone to make something(s) this fast when this much performance was always available on the table. Crazy accomplishment!
    • chrysoprace 13 minutes ago
      I believe it goes back a few years to originally being just oxlint, and then recently Void Zero was created to fund the project. One of the big obstacles I can imagine is that it needs extensive plugin support to support all the modern flavours of TypeScript like React, Vue, Svelte, and backwards compatibility with old linting rules (in the case of oxlint, as opposed to oxc which I imagine was a by-product).
    • nullsanity 9 minutes ago
      It takes a good programmer to write it, and most good programmers avoid JavaScript, unless forced to use it for their day job. in that case, there is no incentive to speed up the part of the job that isn't writing JavaScript.
    • WD-42 39 minutes ago
      Because Rust makes developers excited in a way that C/C++ just doesn't.
  • zdw 1 hour ago
    This compiles to native binaries, as opposed to deno which is also in rust but is more an interpreter for sandboxed environments?
    • 3836293648 1 hour ago
      Deno is a native implementation of a standard library, it doesn't have language implementation of its own, it just bundles the one from Safari (javascriptcore).

      This is a set of linting tools and a typestripper, a program that removes the type annotations from typescript to make turn it into pure javascript (and turn JSX into document.whateverMakeElement calls). It still doesn't have anything to actually run the program.

      • ameliaquining 1 hour ago
        Deno uses V8, which is from Chrome. Bun uses JavaScriptCore.
    • ameliaquining 1 hour ago
      Oxc is not a JavaScript runtime environment; it's a collection of build tools for JavaScript. The tools output JavaScript code, not native binaries. You separately need a runtime environment like Deno (or a browser, depending on what kind of code it is) to actually run that code.
    • nine_k 1 hour ago
      No, it it a suite of tools to handle Typescript (and Javascript as its subset). So far it's a parser, a tool to strip Typescript declarations and produce JS (like SWC), a linter, and a set of code transformation tools / interfaces, as much as I can tell.
  • sneak 14 minutes ago
    Thought this was something related to Oxide Computer - they might want to be careful with that branding.
  • robofanatic 1 hour ago
    oxidation is a chemical process where a substance loses electrons, often by reacting with oxygen, causing it to change. What does it have to do with JavaScript?
    • nine_k 1 hour ago
      Oxidation of iron produces rust. Rust is the language of implementation of that compiler, and of the entire Oxc suite.
    • ayhanfuat 1 hour ago
      It is written in Rust…
  • latchkey 1 hour ago
    I've played with all of these various formatters/linters in my workflow. I tend to save often and then have them format my code as I type.

    I hate to say it, but biome just works better for me. I found the ox stuff to do weird things to my code when it was in weird edge case states as I was writing it. I'd move something around partially correct, hit save to format it and then it would make everything weird. biome isn't perfect, but has fewer of those issues. I suspect that it is hard to even test for this because it is mostly unintended side effects.

    ultracite makes it easy to try these projects out and switch between them.

  • Ecko123 2 hours ago
    [dead]
  • zenon_paradox 3 hours ago
    [dead]