Cloverfield Build w/ Makefiles

An example of building a project with make, based on the TodoMVC backbone example.

Getting Started

git clone https://github.com/jesstelford/cloverfield-build-make.git && cd cloverfield-build-make
npm install

Build process

To run the build process

make <target>

Available make targets can be seen in Makefile;

all   - alias for make lint build test
build - alias for make css js
watch-build - trigger rebuild on file change
js    - concat + compress js files
css   - convert scss to css
lint  - use eslint to check correctness of js files
test  - run tape tests as present in test/ dir
clean - clean up after previously run build targets

Note that the css target really doesn't do anything - it is a contrived example for this repo and merely results in copying an existing .css file to another location (it was never Sass to begin with!)

npm run aliases

I have aliased a couple of the commands in package.json as runnable scripts. This is done as an example showing how make and npm can live in harmony.

npm run build-all   # alias for make lint build test
npm run build-clean # alias for make clean

Motivation

Cloverfield aims to create a next generation JavaScript project boilerplate. That means we'll use the tools that coders in-the-know will be using over the next 1 - 3 years. We're starting with the 2016 edition. Read more.

The JS community has been splintering when it comes to task runner consensus. For a while, Grunt was the clear winner, but that isn't the case anymore. We need to make a decision on one of these options, because many of our generators are going to produce some sort of task runner config. Please do some research and weigh in by answering the questions below.

Gulp and Brocolli have entered the community radar, and there is a growing trend to lean more heavily on Unix pipes instead of Node streams or the heavy file i/o typical of Grunt setups.

And the long-time reigning champion that's been a part of Unix since the time of the ancient grey beards is starting to make inroads. See Building JavaScript Projects with Make.

Oh, and npm has a built-in task runner that lets you easily leverage Unix pipes. Substack thinks that's the way to go, and he's not alone.

This is a pretty confusing landscape for those who haven't investigated all of these possible solutions, so lets try to lay out the pros and cons of each.

• Choosing a Task Runner for the Cloverfield Boilerplate Scaffold