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Show HN: Fez, a file-based build tool for JavaScript

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Re: Show HN: Fez, a file-based build tool for JavaScript

#21

Post by jdlshore »

robert-wallis wrote: post #20

I'm suppose I'm in the minority of developers that _don't_ think we need to learn more build tools. make, configure, automake, autoconf, MSBuild, Apache Ant, rake, gradle, jake, grunt, gulp, fez Sorry, I'm sure your system is nice and organized. But now you've introduced one more build dependency that will make projects based on Fez just a little more difficult to on-board.

I couldn't disagree more strongly. Sure, make is a fine (if quirky) tool, but I would hate to live in a world where that was the only build tool available. There's good reasons people choose not to use it.

Fact is, people want different things from their tools. Each of the ones you mentioned has its own strengths and weaknesses. They tend to be better than their predecessors in some way, for some specific need. And this is how progress is made... via a thriving marketplace of [ build tools, languages, frameworks, libraries ]. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Re: Show HN: Fez, a file-based build tool for JavaScript

#22

Post by ilaksh »

I don't understand how to use it. Can I just write this:

    *.less → %f.css
    *.css → %f.min.css
    *.min.css → dist.min.css
in a file and then run the command "fez"? And if not, then why not? If that was how you used fez then I would strongly consider using it.

If you are looking for a build tool, I strongly recommend you first consider a bash script.

Or if you are still looking for a build tool, like you collect them or something, I made my own too (lol): https://github.com/ithkuil/bild

Mine uses yaml files like this:

    - coffee:
        files: src/*.coffee
        out: lib
    - uglify: 
        files: public/js/*.js
        out: public/js/min.js

Re: Show HN: Fez, a file-based build tool for JavaScript

#23

Post by robert-wallis »

jdlshore wrote: post #21
robert-wallis wrote: post #20

I'm suppose I'm in the minority of developers that _don't_ think we need to learn more build tools. make, configure, automake, autoconf, MSBuild, Apache Ant, rake, gradle, jake, grunt, gulp, fez Sorry, I'm sure your system is nice and organized. But now you've introduced one more build dependency that will make projects based on Fez just a little more difficult to on-board.

I couldn't disagree more strongly. Sure, make is a fine (if quirky) tool, but I would hate to live in a world where that was the only build tool available. There's good reasons people choose not to use it. Fact is, people want different things from their tools. Each of the ones you mentioned has its own strengths and weaknesses. They tend to be better than their predecessors in some way, for some specific need. And t…

One of the great things about open-source, is when you discover a weakness in some tool you like, you can modify that tool and submit a patch. Or you can learn from the source of one tool and add another tool to the marketplace. When the marketplace is saturated, patching or modifying the popular tools is preferable to me.

Also, I would prefer developers spend more time making general applications and less time making tools for other developers. I'm not saying people shouldn't make great dev tools, I'm saying more people should make great applications, and less people should make great dev tools.

Re: Show HN: Fez, a file-based build tool for JavaScript

#25

Post by sintaxi »

ilaksh wrote: post #22

I don't understand how to use it. Can I just write this: *.less → %f.css *.css → %f.min.css *.min.css → dist.min.css in a file and then run the command "fez"? And if not, then why not? If that was how you used fez then I would strongly consider using it. If you are looking for a build tool, I strongly recommend you first consider a bash script. Or if you are still looking for a build tool, like you collect them or so…

This is exactly how harp works. If you don't want to deal with configuration harp implicitly does what you just suggested. You can run it directly as a web server or compile your project to HTML/CSS/JS. It might be what you are looking for.

Re: Show HN: Fez, a file-based build tool for JavaScript

#26

Post by couchand »

robert-wallis wrote: post #23
jdlshore wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't disagree more strongly. Sure, make is a fine (if quirky) tool, but I would hate to live in a world where that was the only build tool available. There's good reasons people choose not to use it. Fact is, people want different things from their tools. Each of the ones you mentioned has its own strengths and weaknesses. They tend to be better than their predecessors in some way, for some specific need. And t…

One of the great things about open-source, is when you discover a weakness in some tool you like, you can modify that tool and submit a patch. Or you can learn from the source of one tool and add another tool to the marketplace. When the marketplace is saturated, patching or modifying the popular tools is preferable to me. Also, I would prefer developers spend more time making general applications and less time makin…

I agree, it's great to be able to fix problems with open source projects. But there's not always one tool to rule them all

Fact is, people want different things from their tools.

Re: Show HN: Fez, a file-based build tool for JavaScript

#27

Post by CGamesPlay »

isaacb wrote: post #10
CGamesPlay wrote: post #5

Cool! I have two questions: does this support watching files to regenerate them? Second, one of the main features from my similar project (npm install webapp-builder) is appending a socket.io connection to generated HTML to force a browser refresh when files have finished building. I view webapp-builder as too monolithic, so I'm curious how difficult it would be to implement a similar feature in Fez?

1) Since it only does the work that needs to be done, you can safely 'watch node fez.js' and if there have been no file changes, nothing will be done! This won't work on Windows, of course, but then I'm not sure if anything else in Fez works on Windows anyway. I'll have to get that going here soon. 2) You can do pretty much whatever sort of transformation you want in an operation. In fact, if you want I can take a lo…

Thanks for the info. It's not super hi-pri for me right now, but I've starred the project and I'll drop by the IRC channel once I decide it's time to do more work on webapp-builder. Seems like the auto-refreshing bit might make a nice Fez builder (or step, or whatever the lexicon is).
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