Migrate to ES6 modules and build with WebPack

[gruns]

WebPack isn't a good fit to build the current version of IWC because the current version of IWC isn't divided into composable modules. Instead, every file

src/sj.js
src/utils/BasicUtils.js
src/utils/Error.js
src/utils/Array.js
src/utils/Object.js
src/utils/Observable.js
src/utils/LocalStorage.js
src/iwc/iwc.js
src/iwc/InterlockedCall.js
src/iwc/SharedData.js
src/iwc/EventBus.js
src/iwc/WindowMonitor.js
src/iwc/Lock.js
src/iwc/Client.js
src/iwc/Server.js

modifies the global SJ variable and would need to be shimmed:

• https://webpack.js.org/guides/shimming/

The correct, modern approach is to update IWC's components to composable ES6/ES2015 modules. IWC could then be published to npm, installed with npm, and cleanly bundled and used like

import { iwc } from iwc

@slimjack: Is an overhaul of IWC to ES6 modules acceptable? That's the correct, big picture solution instead of a single, implicit global variable SJ.

If so, I'll also modernize IWC to ES6 modules along with the migration to WebPack.

[slimjack]

@gruns What about IE support?

[gruns]

IE, unfortunately, doesn't support ES6 modules.

One pragmatic solution is to build two script versions:

• IWC.es6.js
• IWC.global.js

The former is an ES6 module and exports IWC. The latter defines window.IWC globally for use in IE (and other poop browsers).

For a concrete example of this approach, see

• https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/comlink

Notably this line

• https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/comlink/blob/master/package.json#L18

which contains the series of simple sed commands that modifies IWC.es6.js into IWC.global.js.

Is this approach, with one ES6 JS file and one global JS file, acceptable?

[slimjack]

@gruns Yes, it is OK for me to have two versions. Thank you.