For a long time I watched TypeScript take over the JavaScript ecosystem as a reasonable way to add structure and safety. But even before TypeScript existed I was thinking about how to approach this differently, ripping out the "bad parts" of JavaScript instead of accommodating them with a complex and partially strict type system.

Also, recently I found out just how expensive (runtime-wise) it is to host a full-blown TypeScript host, such as Deno. This is very cool tech but kind of bloated when all you want is to run some JavaScript, e.g. as a plugin system. It's possible to just pre-compile (transpile) your .ts files and then ship only the JavaScript output and use a lightweight runtime (QuickJS or even the new Micro QuickJS), but then compilation becomes a neccessary step for what could've been purely dynamic, ad-hoc and quick plugins (think elisp in emacs).

minfern is my second shot at this, and I'm exploring just how much JavaScript idioms are "must have" for it to be useful.