6to5 (ES6 transpiler) is now renamed Babel | Hacker News Reader

6to5 (ES6 transpiler) is now renamed Babel

github.com

71 pointswildpeaks18 comments

See https://github.com/babel/babel/issues/568 for why this name change happened.

The website still points to https://github.com/6to5/6to5 yet the link now redirects to https://github.com/babel/babel.

Good move because even if it started with ES6, it now supports more (e.g. some ES7 features and JSX) so the name didn't fit anymore.

Haven't finished the rename yet.

There's a well-known, widely used, Python project called Babel (http://babel.pocoo.org/).

I find it quite annoying when people name their project without consideration for other people in the open source community.

Other historical examples include Mozilla Firebird, which was renamed to Thunderbird after loud complains of the Firebird database community, or Twitter's Fabric, which clashes with Fabric (http://www.fabfile.org/), another Python project.

I don't think it's as inconsiderate as you imply. Babel (as in tower of) is a fairly well known biblical reference that I'd expect to find used in all sorts of project names related to translation.

Indeed, a quick googling shows there's a Python Babel, an Eclipse Babel, an Emacs Babel, a TeX Babel, a Babel language, and an Open Babel for chemistry. I'm sure the addition of this new JS Babel won't inconvenience anyone too much.

If anything, I think the real issue is open source projects overplaying their hand and insisting they own certain words or ideas that they have no real claim to, particularly when there isn't any actual chance of confusion. The Firebird renaming wasn't so much sensible precedent as a good example of a Mozilla saying "okay please stop yelling, we'll do whatever you want".

1) "I'd expect to find used in all sorts of project names related to translation."

Indeed, except that this project has nothing to do with i18n like (most of) the other projects you are citing. This is a compiler project, not a multilinguistic project.

2) There is nothing called "Python Babel", it's just called "Babel".

Eclipse Babel (https://eclipse.org/babel/) is called "Eclipse Babel" so there is no name clash.

For some of the other projects, you have a (minor) point.

3) "The Firebird renaming wasn't so much sensible precedent as a good example of a Mozilla saying "okay please stop yelling, we'll do whatever you want"."

Mozilla had a much stronger reason to comply than just goodwill and being fair: the other party had a trademark (see: http://www.firebirdsql.org/en/firebird-brand-faq/ ).

4) The considerate thing to do would have been to call the project "Babeljs".

I recall there have been multiple, incompatible tools for managing gettext-style translation files called "Rosetta".

Not really true. Babel is a generic term for translation/languages and the Python and JavaScript world are very different so confusion about a translation library and a JavaScript transpiler is extremely unlikely.

It becomes confusing if you use Python and JavaScript in the same project, which is common in Web applications.

Hardly, 6to5 isn't a library that you include in your own code. Its a tool that you use indirectly through Gulp/Browserify/WebPack.

Firebird was actually renamed to Firefox and was previously known as Phoenix.

I was wondering about this today; it makes sense to change the name eventually anyway. Once ES6 starts being implemented more widely by actual browsers, the old remit is likely to be obsolete.

2015 most original project name award.

so how is this different from say TypeScript?

once browsers/JS engines supports ES6/ES7, we don't need babel. But thats not the case with Typescript. But we never know. Babel may start supporting ES8. It can be never ending process.

I'm sure Babel will be supporting ES8 and beyond. The rename wasn't just about ES6/ES7 confusion, I believe, but to reflect the expanded ambition of the project to be a general transpiler from the edge ES version to the version with the widest browser and Node.js/io.js support.

However, TypeScript's goals aren't as different as you might think. It is a strict superset of JavaScript, and although it adds features that are not yet on the standards track, there are proposals to add optional static typing via annotations to JS. Given that Google are also interested in such a capability, given Dart and AtScript, it seems probable that types will eventually become part of the language.

agreed. But don't think Dart will last long considering Angular community went for a new AtScript over Dart...Also I am preferring to use Babel is in future I can remove that dependency which not the case with TypeScript or AtScript..

Typescript is a language that compiles to javascript, adding some features.

6to5 (now Babel) compiles javascript with Ecmascript 6 and 7 features (poorly supported) to JavaScript code that only uses Ecmascript 5 features (which all major browsers since 2011 have supported).

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