This seems like an over-engineered CodePen snippet than a real package.
Moreover, it has nothing to do with JavaScrpt, just HTML and CSS.
Finally, let us decide if it's awesome or not (personally I think it's pretty bland).
> No, it's not that simple if you want to copy certain files from A to B and C, other files from A to D etc
Well, yes, it's *that* simple. If I have multiple destinations for the same file, I just have to .pipe again to another destination, that's it.
If I have to move other files to other destinations, I just have to do a new gulp.src and so on. On the plus side, I have the syntax of glob at disposal, and directories get created if they don't exist yet.
Are you even arguing that JavaScript doesn't have enough flexibility for that?
> I really don't see why I should be spawning servers or shell scripts etc from within gulp when it works much better just running them directly.
Strange, I'm sure I just perfectly explained why. Maybe I wasn't clear?
And no, they don't work "much better". At best they work as good.
The only times I rely on just npm scripts is for simple projects(?) that sprout and die in a day.
I remember when I saw a similar solution on Stack Overflow a while ago. It was frowned upon and for a good reason, since all expressions and branches were evaluated anyway.
But if there's a Babel plugin that transpiles those pseudo-components, that's another story and no harm is being done. Just two considerations:
- it won't work for TypeScript, not until TS will have a decent plugin system to work with (which is a *very* complex thing to do in this case, as the strenght of TypeScript relies in its monolithic understanding of the syntax extension it provides);
- they're actually, as I said, *pseudo*-components, which means they look like components but they're just syntactic sugar. This could be jarring for newbies, but also in the long term (with othe similar extensions) I think it would spoil the cleanness of JSX.
Unfortunately, every day that passes we're seeing the limits of JSX. For more complex compositions, it becomes more and more awkward to use (some say the ternary operator should be banned from being used in all languages altogether - there's even the "no-ternary" option for ESLint).
If those are the reasons, I'm even less convinced to switch to npm scripts.
Copying files is as easy as
gulp.src(toBeCopiedGlob)
.pipe(gulp.dest(destDir));
For the rest, Gulp tasks are just JavaScript functions. You're not actually forced to use gulp.src or any other method. You can start shell scripts, you can spawn servers, command livereloading, perform computations and evaluate conditions, etc. and, above all, you have a direct connection with the underling JavaScript application, as you can actually import its modules.
In addition to this, I have a consistent interface in which I can define parameters and help texts, and that's definitely a plus for anyone who's looking at the project's tasks for the first time.
I see your point. Thankfully, as you mentioned, Yarn solved quite a bit of problems with depenencies - that's why I started using it in production right after a short testing period.
Dependencies - even dev ones - still have to be updated, but in my experience Gulp has never been a problem. On the plus side, I have a simple and standardized way to define and run tasks, with hooks for errors and a simplified help page. Teammates have little problem understanding Gulp tasks, rather than inspecting a custom made script: that would be my main concern about the "npm script" approach.
Gulp works well in my general development workflow - which involves watchers for the most part (that start other tasks that finish in a blink), and a couple of less used tasks for which I can afford to wait a couple of seconds more.
But I guess in the end, one should use what's more comfortable for them.
Happy new year!
If those are the reasons, I'm even less convinced to switch to npm scripts. Copying files is as easy as gulp.src(toBeCopiedGlob) .pipe(gulp.dest(destDir)); For the rest, Gulp tasks are just JavaScript functions. You're not actually forced to use gulp.src or any other method. You can start shell scripts, you can spawn servers, command livereloading, perform computations and evaluate conditions, etc. and, above all, you have a direct connection with the underling JavaScript application, as you can actually import its modules. In addition to this, I have a consistent interface in which I can define parameters and help texts, and that's definitely a plus for anyone who's looking at the project's tasks for the first time.