Command line based build gain a lot of attention in the JavaScript world recently. They are straightforward, flexible and quite easy to manage compare to verbose Grunt.js/Gulp.js files and workflows. This goes with the way of being agile and adaptable which is more and more important in the fast changing world. But which command line based build tool to choose ? What’s the differences between them ? tools JavaScript Quick sum up of complex build systems Main disadvantages: and their documentation. They are not always up to date, can break later and cause pain with the debugging. Docs are spread out across different projects and finding things which you are looking for can be really hard. Dependence on plugins . It’s very common to end up with Gruntfile or Gulpfile which has hundreds of lines of code. Code is hard to understand, maintain and trying custom solutions is very challenging. It requires a lot of knowledge about the building system. Whole approach seems to be over-engineered and unnecessary complex. Bloat Further reading: _If you're building a modern JavaScript application or website, there's a good chance you've seen the JavaScript Build…_www.keithcirkel.co.uk Why we should stop using Grunt & Gulp _I know what you’re thinking. WAT?! Didn’t Gulp just kill Grunt? Why can’t we just be content for a few minutes here in…_medium.freecodecamp.com Why I Left Gulp and Grunt for npm Scripts Simple build tools We have 3 candidates: , and . All of those are based on command line scripting. You don’t need much of knowledge about those tools. They are very easy with their construction and workflow. What is important is how you can effectively manage command line scripts. npm scripts Makefile runjs : Main advantages shallow learning curve easy customisation, flexibility plugins are not needed, cli commands are powerful enough npm scripts Built-in feature into npm package manager. Content of each task is held in under “scripts” section. Each task can be called by command. [ ]. package.json npm run [task-name] More Pros: you don’t need to install additional tools, are part of so you are ready to go right away npm scripts npm, hook scripts, which can be run in specific situations, like , or prepublish postinstall pretest Cons: when scripts get complex they are hard to read introducing more complex logic like conditional checks, errors or argument handling can be problematic to implement and maintain you can’t use JavaScript code unless you export it to a separate script file it’s hard to document tasks Obviously you can reduce those cons by extracting commands from scripts section to separate files (bash/node scripts) and call them in npm scripts. In the end it’s not necessary convenient though as you will have your build code spread out across multiple files. For tasks up to 15/20 lines of code which are quite frequent it can feels just too much. Moreover if you want to use ES6/7, ES6 imports in your node.js build scripts you need to compile them. That complicate the process unnecessary. Example of npm scripts usage: Example of calling a task: npm run watch:test Makefile Build automation tool created by and initially released in 1977. With the main purpose for C/C++ code compilation. However thanks to its flexibility it started to gain more universal usage. It allows to define tasks in “Makefile” file. Tasks can be called by command in the terminal. [ ]. Stuart Feldman make More Pros: implementing more complex logic is not an issue good readability you don’t need to install additional tools (unless you are Windows user), should be already present in the unix environment make Cons: you are tied to shell code, you can’t use JavaScript which you already know this means that sometimes shell code can be hard to deal with. Additional learning curve for complex logic. Example of Makefile: Example of calling a task: make test runjs Written in JavaScript. Minimalistic build tool. Can be installed through npm. Allows to define tasks in “runfile.js” file. Tasks can be called by (or ) command in the terminal. [ ]. run npx run More Pros: within tasks (with ES6/7) and import other npm modules. is just a JavaScript module. This allows . you can use JavaScript runfile.js massive flexibility you can do command line calls also, by function run good readability it handles task arguments easily Cons: global command which needs to be installed through This can be avoided in node ≥ 8.2, where you can call tasks through , like “npx run dev_”._ . run npm -g runjs-cli. runjs npx More about npx : Example of runfile.js Example of calling a task: run testrun lint components/App.js --fixrun build:clean Conclusions I would say that considering the simple build tooling, all of those 3 are really good. The main difference is within the relation between flexibility and readability. In that matter seems to be the strongest. runjs For further experimenting I give you a couple of interesting examples which are easy to do in but can be hard to manage in or . runjs npm scripts Makefile Documenting tasks: $ run build --help Sharing tasks to a npm package: $ run shared Accepting arguments and conditional checks: $ run test sidebar/button.js browser Error handling and fallbacks: $ run build Handling async calls: $ run start _Minimalistic building system_www.npmjs.com runjs
