Breaking up with Your Build Tools

Building websites is becoming more and more complicated. We’re compensating for this with build tools like Grunt and Gulp. And as our toolset continues to evolve, we become more and more locked into the decisions we made at the beginning of the project. How many times have you needed the latest version of Jasmine, but the Gulp plugin you are using has you locked into an older version? Or, you found the perfect tool, but it’s only set up to work with another build tool? Have you joined another project, or revisited an old one, only to realize that you don’t have any idea how to start it up? These frustrations don’t need to hold back a web development project any longer – maybe we need to simplify.

Let’s simplify our build processes. Using NPM scripts means we don’t have to find plugins for Gulp, Grunt, or whatever other build tool we’re using to simply to run NPM modules. This means fewer dependencies and a much easier upgrade path to newer versions of the modules we need. Let’s create a common development story for multiple projects that makes it easier to onramp new developers, start new projects, and revisit old ones.

You’ll walk away with an understanding of how to leverage NPM to better utilize the wide range of tools available to you to build a better web.