What Is Tree Shaking in Web Development?🌳

An introduction to optimizing your JavaScript bundles by tree shaking, with examples including Webpack, Rollup, and Lodash.

Photo by Lukasz Szmigiel on Unsplash

I. Understanding Tree Shaking 🌳

Tree shaking 🌳 is a process in modern web development where dead code is eliminated from the final JavaScript bundle, resulting in a smaller, more efficient package. It’s particularly relevant when using module bundlers like Webpack or Rollup, as they support tree shaking out of the box.

Tree shaking 🌳 helps you “shake” off the unnecessary code 🍃, keeping only what’s essential for your application. The term itself is derived from the metaphor of shaking a tree to remove dead leaves and branches!

Now let’s talk about how tree shaking 🌳works and what it means for you.

Photo by Matthew Smith on Unsplash

II. How Tree Shaking Works 🌳

Let’s consider a simple example using emojis. (Unfortunately, emojis means none of these will actually execute in JavaScript, but it’s fun.)