Step 1 : npm install --save-dev gulp-typescript-babel
Step 2:
var gtb = require('gulp-typescript-babel');
gulp.task('compile', function () { gulp.src(config.typescript) .pipe(gtb({incremental: true, configFile: 'tsconfig.json'}, {presets: ['es2015']})) .pipe(gulp.dest(config.output)) });
Step 3: Enjoy.
...immediately mashes a massive number of things together
If you don't want to leverage Gulp to easily automate your build process then don't.
If you don't want to use NPM to download packages then simply download the .zip archive on Github,
(2) It's hundreds more
$ npm install
$ jq '.dependencies | length' < package-lock.json
176
You are only "blindy mashing" three libraries here. Gulp to manage your workflows, Typescript (because that's the goal of your workflow) and Babel to allow older browsers to read modern Javascript. You can cut Babel out of it if you develop something for a modern browser (internal apps, mostly).
That's three widely used dependencies. There is nothing obscure about them at all. The only questionable choice in that tooling chain is Gulp. The reason I used gulp here is that it's very easy to use it to output simple Typescript. Something such as Webpack and Browserify would be for bundling modules and that's an advanced topic.
Ironic that you speak of "blindly mashing things together" - how many different build systems did you mash together there, hidden behind a meta npm package?
The web needs CMake or meson more than C/C++ ever did.
All of those technologies are simply Javascript running serverside (or developer clientside during the development).
I sent you a gulp example because gulp it's very easy to use and you can quickly build customized build processes with it.
"gulp-typescript-babel" is simply a wrapper for "gulp-babel" and "gulp-typescript" which are both simply Javascript libraries. Read their source, there's nothing complicated going on in there.
"gulp-typescript" simply wraps around "Microsoft/TypeScript" and make it easy to pipe into gulp.
"gulp-babel" simply wraps around babeljs and make it easy to pipe into gulp.
"babel" is simply a lib that polyfills and rewrite your next generation JavaScript into code that older browsers can understand.
You originally said "then you spend a month figuring out amd vs esnext vs systemjs and Babel vs browserify vs requireJS vs webpack vs god knows what else.". I sent you this snippet to show how simply it is to build TypeScript.
Oh look, I explained to you a "month worth of research" in a simple HN comment... ! You could have googled it and read a blogpost about it instead.
Sorry for being harsh but if you need a month to figure out how to run Javascript on your computer you need to consider a new career.