babel-cli vs babel-preset-es2015 vs babel-register vs babel-core？

Question

What are all these babel dependencies? What are each of them for and how do they differ? Which one should I use for my nodejs web app?

I have looked on the API website but is there any guide that puts these into simple human English?

Answer 1

In simple terms:

• babel-cli : Is the one you would use if you were trying to compile an ES6/ES7 module to ES5- and you had a need to do that via a terminal command.
• babel-preset-es2015 : Is the package containing a subset of features that ES6/ES7 provides.
• babel-register : A require that you do and causes every file require there after to run through babel, thus allowing you to write ES6/ES7 code in every module.
• babel-core : Same as "babel-cli" except you would use it programmatically inside your app.

Basically, you could use "babel-register" during development with the "babel-preset-es2015" package set. Then use "babel-cli" or "babel-core" to compile your files before production.

I hope that helps.