Using watchify with babelify

Question

Is it practical to use watchify with babelify?

I'm trying out React and running a project in dev mode with:

watchify app/src/src.js -t babelify -o app/build/build.js

I expect watchify to look for changes on src.js and compile a functional build.js with all the required modules and use babelify to compile the jsx parts of the script.

But that seems to take a lot of time, and I end up with a 19000 lines build for my one line script:

var React = require('react');

Is there a better way?

Answer 1

That is correct. The React library is approximately 19000 lines long.

Browserify will bundle all your dependencies together.

If you don't need React then don't require it in.