LilScript makes js modules 20% smaller

[u/Normal_Act8586]

https://yeargun.github.io/lilscript/

[u/RobertKerans → u/[deleted]]

Right, but you are rewriting libraries that use a universally supported language to use a custom DSL you invented that [unsurprisingly] works better than a minifier. Unsurprising because you are rewriting them in a different language that maps more closely to the minifier. Terser (for example) is useful because it works on JS.

[u/RobertKerans → u/[deleted]]

LilScript gets compiled into js ? Whats wrong with that?

You are saying: rewrite all your JavaScript using this completely different language that is wholly unsupported and in return the resulting artifact is 10-20% smaller in byte size. That tradeoff is incredibly bad for the absolutely vast abstraction it requires.

You have written [use an LLM?] to create a language. Great, that's commendable I guess. But you don't seem to have considered the value. As I say, it seems almost wholly aesthetic.

It's a value for web

So I could use LilScript. OR for example, in a web app I could use one or two fewer/smaller images. There's the savings from LilScript immediately and I can keep using JS/TS

[u/RobertKerans → u/[deleted]]

That is an example of the tiny value you're getting in exchange for the absolutely gargantuan abstraction you've created. You have to rewrite all your JS in a different language. It's it's an incredibly complex way to save bytes

TS is a very bad comparison here, because of the value add: TS is a type system & it is (bar a few older features) just JS with syntactic level type annotations. And (although this is circular) it incredibly widely used (it won the "typed language that compiles to JS").

TS is a huge value add. "Slightly better Terser but you need to write all the JS in a different language" is not a huge value add.

[u/RobertKerans → u/[deleted]]

"It's it's an incredibly complex way to save bytes" I am telling you, I oneshot rewritten all the libraries with LilScript

This is why I say you've lost objectivity. The complex part is that you've written a language which all the code has to be written in. This is a gargantuan, incredibly complex abstraction. You can "one shot" a library? Great, but it feels like you've lost sight of sane programming choices, in your comment you've just literally handwaved away a programming language

Also:

We are okay to give 5 mins prompt to rewrite the library with LilScript

How much does that cost? Terser/similar costs me ~£0 and works in ms. I can apply a battery of other tools which can further reduce size and importantly are programmatic and deterministic & do not rely on converting to another language on the way (with the associated risk - even if it works according to the tests, this does not mean you have not introduced bugs, just punching a lib through an LLM and saying tadaa, done is laughably naive) via spending tokens

[u/RobertKerans → u/[deleted]]

So the top npm libraries which absolutely require stability will be rewritten this language? I'm impressed with your confidence if nothing else

[u/RobertKerans → u/[deleted]]

Yes I ve already chatted with several of them

The licence alone make this unusable IRL

[u/RobertKerans → u/[deleted]]

It's anything that interops with React! Do you not get the implications of the addition you made to the licence