Not everyone is aware of this fact. I include myself in the list of those who didn't know that. Most likely because I didn't bother to inform myself because my expectation of the JavaScript ecosystem is that you first need to install npm via node, and then have it pull a huge amount of files just to then have a tool with which you can bundle stuff without then understanding where you need to "install" it. It's a chaotic ecosystem, much worse than Python, and I know and love Python.

``` Major features:

- Extreme speed without needing a cache - JavaScript, CSS, TypeScript, and JSX built-in - A straightforward API for CLI, JS, and Go - Bundles ESM and CommonJS modules - Bundles CSS including CSS modules - Tree shaking, minification, and source maps - Local server, watch mode, and plugins ```

No word of it being a single executable, on the landing page, in the "major features"-list.

`npm install --save-exact --save-dev esbuild`. We have different expectations on how to download a binary.

Edit: I found an instruction on how to get the binary [0], why is this so hidden?

[0] https://esbuild.github.io/getting-started/#download-a-build

That’s a good question since usually these are built into the docker-compose by default. I think my answer would be that it’s to get the same build environment on my Mac as on prod (i.e. a Linux server), but in practice I don’t think platform-specific details matter.

If that’s the case, why not run Python/gunicorn locally as well, and drop docker entirely?