DejaVue #E055 - e18e: Ecosystem Performance (with James Garbutt)

In this episode of DejaVue, Alex sits down with James Garbutt, open source maintainer and lead of the e18e initiative. James shares his journey from writing web scrapers as a teenager to maintaining critical JavaScript libraries like Parse5 or Chokidar and eventually co-creating the ecosystem performance initiative. The conversation dives deep into e18e, which aims to improve performance across the JavaScript ecosystem through three key strategies: * Cleaning up dependency trees * Speeding up popular packages * Creating lighter alternatives to bloated libraries James explains how the community-driven approach has already produced impressive results all across the web development landscape. Learn about real-world examples of performance improvements, including replacement packages like tinyglobby and nano-staged, and discover how to contribute to e18e even if you're new to open source. James shares insights on making intentional trade-offs between backward compatibility and performance, the challenges of bundling dependencies, and future plans for e18e in 2025. Enjoy the episode! --- Our Guest * James "43081j" Garbutt * Vite https://e18e.dev/ * Website https://43081j.com/ * Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/43081j.com/ --- Your Host * Alexander Lichter * YouTube - @TheAlexLichter * Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/thealexlichter.com * Web - https://www.lichter.io/ -- Chaptermarks: 00:00:00 Welcome to DejaVue 00:00:34 Which libraries do you maintain? 00:02:10 How did you get into programming? 00:04:57 What lead you to Vue.js 00:06:40 Not ending up in a framework bubble 00:09:41 Meta frameworks converging 00:11:28 What is e18e? 00:15:40 The purpose of e18e 00:18:27 How to participate? 00:20:38 Are there prerequisites? 00:23:59 Ripple effects from e18e improving the ecosystem 00:26:36 Helping other projects migrate 00:30:27 Considering backwards compatibility 00:35:50 Example for replacement packages 00:37:56 tinyglobby 00:40:40 Edge cases and modular architecture 00:43:49 Performance pattern and anti pattern 00:45:32 Bundling dependencies 00:50:48 What is planned for e18e in 2025? 00:56:39 How do you lead and structure the e18e initiative? 01:01:42 Anything else we didn't cover? 01:02:21 Wrapping up -- Links and Resources ▶ Parse5 https://github.com/inikulin/parse5 ▶ Doom in TypeScript (by @MichiganTypeScript) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mCsluv5FXA ▶ Flappy Bird in TS https://zackoverflow.dev/writing/flappy-bird-in-type-level-typescript/ ▶ LitElement https://lit.dev/ ▶ Speeding up the ecosystem blog post series Marvin Hagemeister https://marvinh.dev/blog/speeding-up-javascript-ecosystem/ ▶ e18e Issue Overview https://github.com/e18e/ecosystem-issues ▶ e18e Discord https://chat.e18e.dev/ ▶ minizlib install size improvements https://bsky.app/profile/43081j.com/post/3llov3jqbdc2t ▶ Storybook dependency tree reduction https://bsky.app/profile/storybook.js.org/post/3larex2x42s2q ▶ e18e module replacement repository https://github.com/es-tooling/module-replacements ▶ @antfu's node_modules inspector https://node-modules.dev/ ▶ Publint by Bjorn Lu https://publint.dev/ ▶ Umbrella CLI https://github.com/e18e/reporter ▶ nano-staged (instead of lint-staged) https://github.com/usmanyunusov/nano-staged ▶ npm-run-all2 https://github.com/bcomnes/npm-run-all2 ▶ eslint-import-plugin-x (instead of eslint-plugin-import) https://github.com/un-ts/eslint-plugin-import-x ▶ tinyglobby (instead of any other glob lib like globby/fast-glob) https://github.com/SuperchupuDev/tinyglobby/tree/main ▶ fdir https://github.com/thecodrr/fdir ▶ Vite Devtools announcement https://voidzero.dev/posts/voidzero-nuxtlabs-vite-devtools ▶ Bundling dependencies (and when not to do it) https://e18e.dev/blog/bundling-dependencies.html ▶ A lighter Nuxt CLI https://github.com/nuxt/cli/issues/648 -- Follow DejaVue on ▶ The Web: https://dejavue.fm/ ▶ Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/dejavue.fm ▶ Twitter: https://twitter.com/dejavuefm ▶ Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dejavue/id1737631788 ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DejaVueFm ▶ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5VQ15QHkC7HSmwTYR7vCPF ▶ Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/show/1000792252 ▶ Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/798ccbb2-4a8f-4d83-bff7-00cbc8730f56 ▶ Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/49qr8d1k -- Links marked with * are affiliate links. We get a small commission when you register for the service through our link. This helps us to keep the podcast running. We only include affiliate links for services mentioned in the episode or that we use ourselves.