[hughes]

My favorite change is how configuration has been clarified. For example, see how loaders are configured now - instead of using a giant string delimited by special characters like this:

    'css-loader?modules-true!postcss-loader!sass-loader'

Loaders are configured with an ordered list:

    [
      {
        loader: 'css-loader',
        options: {
          modules: true
        }
      },
      {
        loader: 'postcss-loader'
      },
      {
        loader: 'sass-loader'
      }
    ]

It takes up way more space but it's also entirely clear what's happening.

More config changes are summarized here:

http://javascriptplayground.com/blog/2016/10/moving-to-webpa...

[scrollaway]

After having used both Webpack 1 and 2, my favorite feature is simply most of the insanity being gone.

I was hitting my head against my desk setting up npm and webpack 1 for almost 3 hours a couple of weeks ago. I then said fuck it, replaced them with yarn and webpack 2 respectively and all my issues were fixed.

Truly magical.

[untog]

I tried Webpack 2, and it still seems relatively insane to me. After switching over to Rollup my life has gotten a lot easier. It isn't quite as feature packed, but I'm glad to be done with importing a .css file in my .js file then having to specify a plugin to pull it back out again.

[sametmax]

I still wonder how come the first syntax was considered a good idea in the first place ?

Figuring how to configure webpack 1 (haven't tried 2) is crazy, and I don't understand how people able to construct such a complex tool that is currently unique on the market, and works so well, managed to design a conf settings that badly.

[dictum]

> I still wonder how come the first syntax was considered a good idea in the first place ?

I think it came from RequireJS, probably intended for one-off usage (e.g. a single require that requires a certain loader)

Still a bad idea, though.

http://requirejs.org/docs/plugins.html (Jan 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20110109084245/http://requirejs....)

[thelarkinn]

Ironically the biggest challenge is involved with connecting a very declarative under the hood plugin architecture, to a more imperitive fluid configuration for users. We would love all the great ideas we can get!