Consider Esbuild Integration

[tooolbox]

Esbuild is a pure-Go JS bundler with syntax lowering features.

1. One of the features of Algernon is JSX transformation, using goja-babel. Replacing this with Esbuild could see dramatic performance improvements.
2. By integrating Esbuild into Algernon, it could do on-the-fly (or cached) processing, including bundling, typescript stripping, the aforementioned JSX transforms, and lowering to ES6.

I could see general integration being achieved in a few ways:

• Exposing the Esbuild API to Lua so you can call it from handler code.
• Perhaps, in the matter of .lua or .tmpl, a .esbuild file extension which signals Algernon to use it as an entry point.
• A local config.esbuild file which tells Algernon how to configure Esbuild for a particular directory.

[xyproto]

I support this idea!

[xyproto]

I created a jsx branch that switches from goja-babel to esbuild. It feels really fast, after running a few simple tests.

https://github.com/xyproto/algernon/tree/jsx