Convert to plain JavaScript (or perhaps ES6 with Babel)

[sorccu]

This is a tracking issue for converting the codebase to plain JavaScript. Many potential contributors have expressed their feelings that they're unable to work with a CoffeeScript codebase, plus CoffeeScript is being left behind in features anyway. It has outlived its usefulness.

Steps:

• Combine lib and src so that we can start writing plain JS files that work from both CS and JS.
• Make the linters and hinters to look at the JS codebase while also keeping them looking at the CS codebase.
• Replace files one by one over a longer period of time.
• Get rid of CS hinters and linters.
• Get rid of the prepublish build script (unless converted to Babel).
• Remove CoffeeScript.
• Be happy.

Help is most welcome.

[sorccu]

https://github.com/decaffeinate/decaffeinate seems to produce surprisingly decent results, at least with the smaller files I tried.

[sorccu]

It's a slow start, but adbkit-apkreader has now been freed from CoffeeScript as of v3.0.0. It was quite time intensive, though. Even though it's a fairly small module, it took over an hour to clean up after a decaffeinate run. I estimate that adbkit would take at least two full working days to go through.

[amadeu01]

Hi @sorccu
I took a look at decaf branch. So, we could check each .js file, if it was correctly decaffeinated, we can take off the comments. And if not, we just fix it, then jump to the next file?

Sorry, but I didn't understand

Combine lib and src so that we can start writing plain JS files that work from both CS and JS.

Could you explain it better? What do you mean by combining lib and src?

[sorccu]

Tests require the src folder, whereas the public package only has the lib folder.

The decaf branch is slightly out of date. While the converted files may work as-is, many of them look quite crappy.

[sorccu]

adbkit-logcat no longer uses CoffeeScript as of v2.0.0. It took about two hours to convert everything. While larger than adbkit-apkreader which was previously converted, it's still way, way smaller than adbkit itself. My estimate of several days to convert adbkit still stands.

[harlentan]

How is this project going ?

Maybe is time to rewrite the adbkit with pure JavaScript. It's not only just about the CoffeeScript, it's also about the dependencies many of which are out of date, such as the bluebird.

[sorccu]

Outdated deps are a separate issue - some spots still use progress callbacks which means that breaking changes are required, which means more work downstream. It’s not quite so simple.

Also, and please keep in mind that I am trying to say this as nicely as possible, and I am aware that your intent was not malicious, but just to make it clear, open source creators/maintainers are not public utilities. Unfortunately, spending two or more days on the conversion is not a time investment I will be able to or necessarily even want to do anytime soon - certainly you should not expect that. It may happen or it might not. It is a significant task.

If someone wants to take charge of the conversion project, that would be great and would make things go faster :) Should I end up doing it, it will be on my terms.

[harlentan]

Thanks for your effert for this. You did a great job.

[phapdinh]

@sorccu can we start by converting the grunt file from CS to JS? I can create a PR for it

[sorccu]

Yes

[P0oOOOo0YA]

2020 Go straight to Typescript

[huhuang03]

go typescript?

[koral--]

There is a PR for that. However it has merge conflicts: #120
feel free to resolve them :)

[RexHuang]

I would like to help convert project to plain JavaScript.
but as I can see , it's already in plain JavaScript when install with npm.
Is it done already?

[koral--]

Coffee files are still in sources: https://github.com/openstf/adbkit/tree/master/src