Babel in simple words could be described as a JavaScript Transpiler, which would enable you to write modern JavaScript (ES6 and ES7) codes , and with the help of it, you could transpile it and make it backward compatible to support JavaScript version ES5. You could ask me “Why do you need Babel”, well, I will give you a brief explanation for that; You have noticed ES5, ES6 & ES7 above in the answer, these all are versions of JavaScript, ES5 was introduced back in 2009, ES6 in 2015, and ES7 in 2016. These all are essentially versions of JavaScript, but the catch here is that ES5 and ES6 are kinds of very different. ES6 is heavily updated with new features. And to compare that ES6 and ES7 are not so different.
So, if you write JavaScript codes for websites, or applications, the browsers that you are working on, may not support your modern versions, because they are still updating the packages and other dependencies, to support ES6. So, let's assume, that some percentage of websites will not work because they function in ES5. Then what will you do? That’s where Babel kicks in, which will transpile the JS version to make it backward compatible. And thus, you could solve the problem. If you are interested in learning React, then check out the React course, from Intellipaat. And also watch the following video on React Tutorial for Beginners [ReactJS].
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