Tree Shaking
Tree shaking is a dead code elimination technique used in JavaScript bundlers to remove unused code from the final bundle. It works by analyzing the static structure of ES6 modules to identify and exclude exports that are not imported anywhere in the application. This reduces bundle size, improving load times and performance for web applications.
Developers should use tree shaking when building modern JavaScript applications with module bundlers like Webpack or Rollup to optimize production builds. It is essential for large-scale applications where minimizing bundle size directly impacts user experience through faster loading. Tree shaking is particularly effective in frameworks like React or Vue where components and libraries might include unused features.