Does babel need es6-shim?

Question

I mentioned on Twitter that I was moving from es6-shim to babel. Someone else mentioned:

the shims are still needed even with babel. they fix broken builtins, ones babel's output uses.

So:

1. Does babel need es6-shim or similar?

2. If it does, why doesn't babel require these things as a dependency?

Answers with references preferred over 'yes / no' with no supporting arguments!

Answer 1

Babel, at its core, does a single thing: convert syntax from one form to another.

Some of Babel's syntax transformations introduce dependencies on ES6 library functionality. It doesn't concern itself with how that functionality got there because:

• The system might already provide it
• The user might only want to load specific pieces of a library
• There are many polyfills and the user might have a specific one it wants to use.

It is the developers job to ensure that the transpiled code is running in an environment where all the functions it needs actually exist.

• Babel should work fine with es6-shim if you'd like to keep using it.

• Babel also exposes babel/polyfill as a dead simple way to load a polyfill, which loads core-js, another polyfill like es6-shim. Just:

  require('babel/polyfill');