Why I Left Gulp and Grunt for Npm Scripts • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Left Gulp and Grunt for Npm Scripts

#21

Post by EvanPlaice » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 1:29 PM UTC

cortesi wrote: post #13

EvanPlaice wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why create devd when you could have just used live-server? It automatically injects the LiveReload stub and watches the directory for changes. I guess, if your end goal is to move everything away from the node ecosystem. To each their own.

Well, first, I think it's perfectly fine to have multiple takes on the same problem space. This is how we progress - people try different things, and we gradually figure out what works. Live-server does a specific set of things, and devd is a different take on a slightly wider set of things, and I think that's just dandy. The overlap is far from precise, and I think there's enough room for both devd and live-server (…

grumble reinventing wheels grumble

Live-server is capable of a lot more than I mentioned. There's also lite-server which is geared more toward SPAs.

Anyway, if you enjoy hacking on devd I won't fault you for it.

I'm not really looking to switch to go. I'm one of those weirdos who actually really likes JS. The massive NPM ecosystem just makes everything that much more fun.

Re: Why I Left Gulp and Grunt for Npm Scripts

#22

Post by michaelmior » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 1:30 PM UTC

> When you use npm scripts, you don’t search for a Grunt or Gulp plugin. You choose from over 227,000 npm packages.

This statement is sensationalist and I don't think it presents a useful argument. Sure I could write a script that uses one of those packages but that has nothing to do with whether or not any of those packages actually helps me achieve my goal.

Re: Why I Left Gulp and Grunt for Npm Scripts

#23

Post by pjmlp » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 1:58 PM UTC

I am so happy to have left the web back into native, just about when gulp, grunt, npm, yeoman and friends were picking up steam.

It is not enough to jungle DOM libraries, CSS generation, JavaScript frameworks, browser compatibility headaches, one also needs to use the build tool of the day.

Re: Why I Left Gulp and Grunt for Npm Scripts

#24

Post by paulojreis » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 1:58 PM UTC

michaelmior wrote: post #22

> When you use npm scripts, you don’t search for a Grunt or Gulp plugin. You choose from over 227,000 npm packages. This statement is sensationalist and I don't think it presents a useful argument. Sure I could write a script that uses one of those packages but that has nothing to do with whether or not any of those packages actually helps me achieve my goal.

Completely agree. Comparing these numbers doesn't make sense; of course npm has more modules, but why would I care about having e.g. node's express framework available to my build tool/task runner?

Re: Why I Left Gulp and Grunt for Npm Scripts

#25

Post by aroberge » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 2:04 PM UTC

dandv wrote: post #4

Using npm instead of Grunt/Gulp/etc. has been extensively discussed by Keith Cirkel at http://blog.keithcirkel.co.uk/how-to-use-npm-as-a-build-tool... . Would've been nice to at least acknowledge that, if not join efforts and try to address some of the inherent shortcomings (e.g. the readability of long lines - https://github.com/keithamus/npm-scripts-example/issues/30 ).

It has been acknowledged in the post: it is one of many links prefaced by I’m far from the first person to suggest this. Here are some excellent links:

Re: Why I Left Gulp and Grunt for Npm Scripts

#26

Post by cballard » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 2:09 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #23

I am so happy to have left the web back into native, just about when gulp, grunt, npm, yeoman and friends were picking up steam. It is not enough to jungle DOM libraries, CSS generation, JavaScript frameworks, browser compatibility headaches, one also needs to use the build tool of the day.

Makefiles still work!

Re: Why I Left Gulp and Grunt for Npm Scripts

#27

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 2:25 PM UTC

cortesi wrote: post #6

I'm moving in a similar direction for similar reasons - but by shifting functionality out of the node ecosystem altogether. I recently released devd, a small, dev-focused HTTP server with build-in livereload which has taken the place of gulp livereload and node-based dev servers for many of my projects ( https://github.com/cortesi/devd ). I'm now working on the next step. It's not quite ready to be announced yet, but…

[deleted]

Re: Why I Left Gulp and Grunt for Npm Scripts

#28

Post by pjmlp » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 2:28 PM UTC

cballard wrote: post #26

pjmlp wrote: post #23

I am so happy to have left the web back into native, just about when gulp, grunt, npm, yeoman and friends were picking up steam. It is not enough to jungle DOM libraries, CSS generation, JavaScript frameworks, browser compatibility headaches, one also needs to use the build tool of the day.

Makefiles still work!

Not for matching bullet points on job adverts.

Besides I never liked them that much.

Re: Why I Left Gulp and Grunt for Npm Scripts

#29

Post by debacle » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 2:29 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #23

I am so happy to have left the web back into native, just about when gulp, grunt, npm, yeoman and friends were picking up steam. It is not enough to jungle DOM libraries, CSS generation, JavaScript frameworks, browser compatibility headaches, one also needs to use the build tool of the day.

The worst is when the same developer uses the same tools in his build process for two different projects but they need to be executed in a different order for each.

Re: Why I Left Gulp and Grunt for Npm Scripts

#30

Post by jlas » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

> Misconception #3: Gulp’s Streams Are Necessary for Fast Builds

The author fails to acknowledge that gulp is also asynchronous. This is what makes it "fast". Streaming is just a nice abstraction for passing data through a pipeline.

Sure you can do async on command line but that's not trivial and the author doesn't address that.