Better Developer Experience for Module Builders

[bajtos]

A list of different features that can improve DX for module builders.

• Auto-generated API docs for JavaScript SDKs #11
• zinnia repl - see deno repl
• zinnia eval - see deno eval "console.log('hello world')"
• Interactive debugger via Chrome DevTools - see https://deno.land/manual@v1.30.3/basics/debugging_your_code
• Code formatter - see https://deno.land/manual@v1.30.3/tools/formatter
• Linter - see https://deno.land/manual@v1.30.3/tools/linter
• TypeScript support - provide .d.ts typings describing our APIs
• Watch mode (similar to node --watch and deno --watch)

Done:

• Build binaries for each release #23
• ES Modules #43
• Automated tests for JS modules #44
• Run modules written in TypeScript with no transpilation needed. This should be pretty easy according to this blog post from Deno authors

[benjaminpreiss]

@bajtos I am wondering, does zinnia run ... reload when there are changes in the codebase?

If so, couldn't I set up my repo with vite or bun and use e.g. vite build --watch to transpile my application to js during development to a directory in my dev environment (let's say dist) and then run zinnia on the files in that directory (dist)?

Then I could use TS in my dev environment :)

[bajtos]

@bajtos I am wondering, does zinnia run ... reload when there are changes in the codebase?

If so, couldn't I set up my repo with vite or bun and use e.g. vite build --watch to transpile my application to js during development to a directory in my dev environment (let's say dist) and then run zinnia on the files in that directory (dist)?

Then I could use TS in my dev environment :)

Not yet, unfortunately.

Zinnia is extremely bare-bone right now, we didn't invest into developer experience for subnet builders.

I am adding your suggestion to the list in the issue description.

[bajtos]

• TypeScript support - run modules written in TypeScript.

This Deno package can be useful for that: https://github.com/denoland/deno_ast

See also https://github.com/denoland/roll-your-own-javascript-runtime/blob/dff7d356e5ca80256687bba21217090f24013b30/src/main.rs#L67-L118