Printing out the invalid typeof value in error thrown by createTypeAnnotationBasedOnTypeof

[didnotwant]

Feature Request

• I would like to work on this feature!

Is your feature request related to a problem?

The solution I’d like to propose might be helpful in debugging why the compilation of some code with types not known by the tool fails. My real-life example is the bigint type. I described my problem with one of dependencies here: getsentry/sentry-javascript#3336

Describe the solution you'd like

Currently the error message looks like that:

ERROR in unknown: Invalid typeof value

I think it’s very poor which not only doesn’t help with debugging, but — what’s more — it’s similar to one of JSHint errors (jshint/jshint#3331) which may make a developer confused and make the debugging process harder.

My proposal is to make the message more verbose, like:

ERROR in unknown: Invalid typeof value: bigint

Such a small change could save one’s time I believe. Additionally, as I wrote above, it’d be good to rephrase the message so that it’s not similar to JSHint’s error.

Describe alternatives you've considered.

The alternative is to add missing types and try to keep the tool up-to-date. But I imagine it’s hard to anticipate that e.g. anyone started using any features from early TC39 stages. Anyway, the more debug pieces of information I proposed won’t hurt.

Documentation, Adoption, Migration Strategy

Not related in this case I think but maybe adding info to docs of the minify plugin would be more less helpful? https://github.com/babel/minify/tree/master/packages/babel-preset-minify#options
I mean some info on which options cause recompilation.

[didnotwant]

Related: #6880

[babel-bot]

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[JLHwung]

Sorry I missed your intention to work on this feature. This issue is now tracked in #12971.