How to use ES6+ features in nodejs

This article is about how to use es6+ in nodejs project

Initialising project with npm

npm init -y

Installing babel plugins for es6+ features

npm i -D @babel/cli @babel/core @babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties @babel/plugin-transform-runtime @babel/preset-env 

Adding babel support for project

touch .babelrc

Paste the following content in .babelrc

{
    "presets": ["@babel/preset-env"],
    "plugins": ["@babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties", "@babel/transform-runtime"]
}

Babel is not a compiler or interpreter it is just a transpiler so we have to transpile es6 to es5 using babel then we have to execute that transpiled code. For that we can write npm script.

Add the following script to package.json

"build": "babel src -d dist",
"start": "npm run build && node dist"

Now create src folder and start writing es6+ code inside that folder. Run npm start it will create dist folder inside that folder we can find transpiled code.

Cheers!!!
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Comments

[Mathias Døhl]

NodeJS has a very good support for ES6+ features, in the latest versions.

One of the nice things with NodeJS, is that you yourself can control the version being used. The node team has become amazing, at keeping up with the newest features of the language. So if you can keep up with the latest nodeJS releases, are you up for greate support for even the latest ES2021 and ES2022 features. No need for babel.

kangax.github.io/compat-table/es20...