Replace webpack with rspack

[nicholasio]

Is your enhancement related to a problem? Please describe.

Rspack provides a webpack compatible API and could significantly improve speed of 10up-toolkit while minimizing the upgrade path.

This issue is to discuss a potential Webpack replacement with Rspack.

Designs

No response

Describe alternatives you've considered

No response

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[fabiankaegy]

@nicholasio based on a quick scan it looks like we would need to still manually port some plugins to rust such as the @wordpress/dependency-exctraction-webpack-plugin 🤔

From my understanding the plugin api is similar but still needs specific ports rather than just working 🤔 Or is that incorrect?

[nicholasio]

@nicholasio based on a quick scan it looks like we would need to still manually port some plugins to rust such as the @wordpress/dependency-exctraction-webpack-plugin 🤔

From my understanding the plugin api is similar but still needs specific ports rather than just working 🤔 Or is that incorrect?

We'll probably need to port some plugins but I don't think we would need to write any rust as there's a plugin api in JavaScript.

[nicholasio]

I don't know if it's worthh replacing it but I think it's worth at least exploring. Webpack is pretty much stagnant and Rspack seems a promising way to use next-gen build tooling without rewriting 10up-toolkit entirely.

[fabiankaegy]

Yeah I'd love anything that speeds up our builds :)