Alternative Approaches

Here is a precise comparison between the alternative approaches that have been practised over the years.

Comparison Table

Publishing Legacy Code	Publishing Modern Code	Publishing Compiled Code	Publishing Editions
Published source code	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Published compiled code	No	No	Yes	Yes
Source and compiled code is published	No	No	Yes, however is difficult and non-standardised	Yes
Producers can make use of modern features (e.g. esnext, babel)	No	Yes, however at the cost of environments that don’t support those features	Yes	Yes
Consumers can make use of modern features (e.g. es modules, flow type)	No	Yes, however at the cost of consumers that don’t support those features	Yes, however is difficult and non-standardised	Yes
Consumption always runs latest compatible code	No, legacy code always used, even on modern environments	No, modern code may not be compatible with legacy environments	Yes, however is difficult and non-standardised	Yes, loaders can automatically load appropriate edition for target environment
Legacy bloat consumed on modern environments	Yes	No	No, however is difficult and non-standardised	No
Modern features could break legacy consumption	No	Yes	No	No
Fixing legacy consumption breaks is easy	No, likely requires manual code changes or polyfill	No, likely requires code rewrite or compilation	Yes, change is a compiler flag	Yes, change is a compiler flag
Consumers informed about this	Yes, however is difficult and non-standardised	Yes, however is difficult and non-standardised	Yes, however is difficult and non-standardised	Yes, renderers automatically inform consumers of their options