Generating API files causes unexpected babel work in unrelated repos

[matthew-blackman]

While regenerating the API for Projectile Data Lab, @samreid and I encountered the following console errors in WebStorm:

matthewblackman@Matthews-MacBook-Pro-2 projectile-data-lab % grunt generate-phet-io-api 
Running "generate-phet-io-api" task
[BABEL] Note: The code generator has deoptimised the styling of /Users/matthewblackman/Documents/PhET/phetsims/balloons-and-static-electricity/images/sweater_png.ts as it exceeds the max of 500KB.
[BABEL] Note: The code generator has deoptimised the styling of /Users/matthewblackman/Documents/PhET/phetsims/build-a-molecule/js/common/model/data/otherMoleculesData.js as it exceeds the max of 500KB.
[BABEL] Note: The code generator has deoptimised the styling of /Users/matthewblackman/Documents/PhET/phetsims/build-a-molecule/js/common/model/data/structuresData.js as it exceeds the max of 500KB.
[BABEL] Note: The code generator has deoptimised the styling of /Users/matthewblackman/Documents/PhET/phetsims/density-buoyancy-common/images/Metal002_col_jpg.ts as it exceeds the max of 500KB.
[BABEL] Note: The code generator has deoptimised the styling of /Users/matthewblackman/Documents/PhET/phetsims/density-buoyancy-common/images/Metal002_nrm_jpg.ts as it exceeds the max of 500KB.
[BABEL] Note: The code generator has deoptimised the styling of /Users/matthewblackman/Documents/PhET/phetsims/density-buoyancy-common/images/Metal002_rgh_jpg.ts as it exceeds the max of 500KB.
[BABEL] Note: The code generator has deoptimised the styling of /Users/matthewblackman/Documents/PhET/phetsims/density-buoyancy-common/images/Metal007_col_jpg.ts as it exceeds the max of 500KB.
[BABEL] Note: The code generator has deoptimised the styling of /Users/matthewblackman/Documents/PhET/phetsims/density-buoyancy-common/images/Metal007_nrm_jpg.ts as it exceeds the max of 500KB.
[BABEL] Note: The code generator has deoptimised the styling of /Users/matthewblackman/Documents/PhET/phetsims/density-buoyancy-common/images/Metal007_rgh_jpg.ts as it exceeds the max of 500KB.
[BABEL] Note: The code generator has deoptimised the styling of /Users/matthewblackman/Documents/PhET/phetsims/density-buoyancy-common/images/Plastic018B_col_jpg.ts as it exceeds the max of 500KB.
[BABEL] Note: The code generator has deoptimised the styling of /Users/matthewblackman/Documents/PhET/phetsims/density-buoyancy-common/images/Plastic018B_nrm_jpg.ts as it exceeds the max of 500KB.
[BABEL] Note: The code generator has deoptimised the styling of /Users/matthewblackman/Documents/PhET/phetsims/density-buoyancy-common/images/Plastic018B_rgh_jpg.ts as it exceeds the max of 500KB.

We aren't sure why running grunt generate-phet-io-api from the projectile-data-lab repo would trigger this Babel work, and would like to investigate further.

[zepumph]

It is curious why we have any babel code running. I'll take a look.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29576341/what-does-the-code-generator-has-deoptimised-the-styling-of-some-file-as-it-e

[samreid]

Maybe grunt generate-phet-io-api invokes the transpiler once? Is the API generated from a built artifact?

[zepumph]

That's what it is! Good find. Anything else for this issue?

chipper/js/grunt/Gruntfile.js

Line 616 in b9b8d46

transpiler.transpileAll();

[samreid]

That seems good. I think we were surprised that it needed to re-transpile things at an unexpected time. If it keeps happening we can investigate. Closing.

[samreid]

Something is wrong with this process, because my transpiler watch process is up to date, yet the transpileAll in the generate API is taking 50+ seconds:

~/phet/root/buoyancy$ time grunt generate-phet-io-api --sims=buoyancy,density,buoyancy-basics
Running "generate-phet-io-api" task
Transpilation took 54388 ms
Generating PhET-iO API for repos: buoyancy, density, buoyancy-basics
[........................................] 100.00%

Done.

real	1m8.232s
user	1m12.295s
sys	0m11.239s
~/phet/root/buoyancy$ time grunt generate-phet-io-api --sims=buoyancy,density,buoyancy-basics
Running "generate-phet-io-api" task
started generate-phet-io-api
starting transpilation
^CTranspilation took 50921 ms

[samreid]

Something appears to be interfering with the caching mechanism. It thinks it needs to re-transpile things that it shouldn't. I'm going to add a Band-Aid, a flag to that tells grunt generate-phet-io-api that it can skip transpiling.

[samreid]

Hasn't happened for a while. Unassigning and hoping to remember this issue next time it's in a buggy state.