Closure Compiler vs IntelliJ IDEA: What are the differences?
What is Closure Compiler? A JavaScript checker and optimizer. The Closure Compiler is a tool for making JavaScript download and run faster. It is a true compiler for JavaScript. Instead of compiling from a source language to machine code, it compiles from JavaScript to better JavaScript. It parses your JavaScript, analyzes it, removes dead code and rewrites and minimizes what's left. It also checks syntax, variable references, and types, and warns about common JavaScript pitfalls.
What is IntelliJ IDEA? Capable and Ergonomic IDE for JVM. Out of the box, IntelliJ IDEA provides a comprehensive feature set including tools and integrations with the most important modern technologies and frameworks for enterprise and web development with Java, Scala, Groovy and other languages.
Closure Compiler and IntelliJ IDEA are primarily classified as "JavaScript Optimizers" and "Integrated Development Environment" tools respectively.
Some of the features offered by Closure Compiler are:
- parses JavaScript, analyzes it, removes dead code and rewrites and minimizes what's left
- checks syntax, variable references, and types, and warns about common JavaScript pitfalls
- transpiling some ECMAScript 6 code to ECMAScript 3
On the other hand, IntelliJ IDEA provides the following key features:
- Smart Code Completion
- On-the-fly Code Analysis
- Advanced Refactorings
Closure Compiler is an open source tool with 5.02K GitHub stars and 923 GitHub forks. Here's a link to Closure Compiler's open source repository on GitHub.
