To use ES6/ES7/ES8 (e.g. async/await), it's just:
npm install --save-dev babel-cli babel-preset-latest
"scripts": {
"build": "babel src -d dist --presets latest"
}But I do agree with your point. The "bootstrapping" process of getting started in a new ecosystem is always extremely exhausting. When i was first learning python, it took me 2 solid weeks of an hour or so a night to build my first package. From getting the right version installed, having to eventually compile it myself, getting pip installed, accidentally using setuptools directly, learning about virtualenvironments, trashing everything and starting over with a venv, getting told by people on stack-overflow that I shouldn't try messing with packages at all as I don't need them and should just install from git, etc...
And just recently I did something similar while revisiting an older PHP codebase. I realized that just getting it in a position where I could run it on the dev machine meant installing a database, language, server, setting up a web root, a shitton of apache config files, and more just to get to a point where I could print hello-world.
That part always sucks, and to be completely honest node-js was the one that sucked the least to me when I first started in that world. At least for windows, it was "download this MSI installer and run it, and now you can npm install stuff". It might be different on other platforms, but it was definitely a breath of fresh air there.
This is my pet hate, except when it's clearly a newbie question. It's usually something like: "Hi, how do I [do unusual thing]?" > "Oh, you shouldn't be doing that, ever." > "Well, this is why I'm trying to do it and the reasonable constraints involved" > "oh, didn't think of that, here's a way to do it". Irritating as hell.
I'm an experienced front-end developer and I must say that that list is intimidating.