JS Static Analysis Considerations for Tomorrow

[ericelliott]

Choosing Static Analysis Tools for the Cloverfield Boilerplate Scaffold

Cloverfield aims to create a next generation JavaScript project boilerplate. That means we'll use the tools that coders in-the-know will be using over the next 1 - 3 years. We're starting with the 2016 edition. Read more.

Which static analysis tools will we be using in 2016? What will the requirements even look like?

• Are you a Facebook Flow expert?
• Are you on the TypeScript team?
• Do you live and breathe Google Closure Compiler?
• Does Tern get your wheels turning?

Look into the Future

• Where are these tools heading over the course of the next 3 years?
• Is there a baseline we can use today that will be easily adaptable for projects we create in 2 years?
• What features should we avoid in order to avoid breaking changes in the future?
• Which features are must-haves, even if we need to run a build step to transform our code for forward compatibility (if we go this route, we should also create the migration path).

Think about broad adoption so that as many users as possible can benefit from this work.

Am I asking the right questions? Let's kick off the discussion!

[davegomez]

I think we should use Facebook Flow so we can use plain JavaScript, and maybe TypeScript as a second option for those who likes the language.

[nkbt]

+1 for Flow. It has some issues with ES6 support though. There might be the way to transform first before flow does it's checks.

https://babeljs.io/docs/advanced/transformers/other/flow/

[nkbt]

Considering Sebastian is now working for Facebook, we should probably see some awesome Flow support soon.