Bun, the direct competition to Node.js and Deno has reached version 1.0. Therefore, it could be used in production by folks who would like to create applications today. I believe that Bun could be a game changer because it is supposed to be a drop-in replacement to Node.js while also making a lot of the tools in the Node.js ecosystem redundant.
I already lived with the pain of configuring a lot of tools in order to make an application in JavaScript. Do you remember Grunt, Brunch, Browserify, or Bower? They all became popular and later replaced with the latest and fanciest tool. Thus, becoming another problem when you want to continue updating your application having to migrate to a new tool. Also, developers prefer different tools which creates a discussion that takes us away from what really matters: the users and their needs.
Having a lot of options is not always the best. Having a de facto standard is better in my opinion because we can improve on this instead of using a bunch of redundant tools. Based on their benchmarks, Bun is faster than a lot of the competitors. But speed is not the thing that I am excited about. I am interested in the ecosystem and getting the tools needed to develop your app without crazy configuring on your part. I think about my students and how they can install Bun without having the headaches of installing other tools for their projects.
The combination of package manager, task runner, test runner, bundler, and transpiler reduces the developer’s time finding and installing tools for their development stack. Just installing and starting coding is what I miss from the early days of web development because there is a lack of a standard set of tools for JavaScript development. I hope they have success and the JavaScript community becomes more cohesive and follows the path of mature programming languages where the building tools just work.
