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Comment by sfvisser | Hacker News Reader

What does it mean to compile CSS? Pack multiple files into one? Resolve and inline variables? Convert nested rules into flat CSS? Something else?

I'm really not sure.

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Its GitHub repo calls it a "transformer" rather than a compiler.

https://parceljs.org/features/plugins/#transformers

> In addition to minification, Parcel CSS handles compiling CSS modules, tree shaking, automatically adding and removing vendor prefixes for your browser targets, and transpiling modern CSS features like nesting, logical properties, level 4 color syntax, and much more.

Elitism about the term "compiler" aside, I've been reading through The History of the FORTRAN Programming Language and funnily enough compile in those historic CS contexts just meant what "to compile" means in English: merging things together. It's an interesting read whatever the case.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52320048-abstracting-awa...

This is not about elitism about terminology, but about sloppiness in using well established words in a specific context to mean something new. It happens rather frequently in the frontend world - which I’m sometimes a part of - and it’s incredibly confusing to all of us.

I write frontend code and backend code and do compiler stuff for fun and I don't find it confusing. "Compiler" means completely separate things in so many contexts that I get the general picture and always need to look deeper to truly understand. Just because it's a generic term doesn't mean anyone should not be allowed to use it IMO.

You are right and I phrased my comment the wrong way.

The confusing part is not calling this process compilation, the confusing part is now calling something a compiler for which the consensus previously was calling it a pre-processor. Now I started to wonder if there is something new that I wasn't aware off, like a browser support optimized binary style format that we can compile into.

It's in the first couple paragraphs

> Parcel CSS handles compiling CSS modules, tree shaking, automatically adding and removing vendor prefixes for your browser targets, and transpiling modern CSS features like nesting, logical properties, level 4 color syntax, and much more.

Had you taken the time to open the link, the 2nd paragraph states their capabilities succinctly:

> Parcel CSS has significantly better performance than existing tools, while also improving minification quality. In addition to minification, Parcel CSS handles compiling CSS modules, tree shaking, automatically adding and removing vendor prefixes for your browser targets, and transpiling modern CSS features like nesting, logical properties, level 4 color syntax, and much more.

I've obviously read that. Most of those features are what we used to call CSS pre-processors, but I'll happily call that compilation if that's a thing now.

It wasn't obvious to me that you had read that paragraph.

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