Build Systems > Introduction

[tomByrer]

Introduction topics:

• Brief explanation
• General advantages
• General disadvantages
• History
  • make
  • Ant
• Segue

I hope that a history of previous build tooling is mentioned. I remember someone talking about Ant 2 years ago. :)
Here is a quick brainstorm for sub-topics. I'd love to hear more ideas!

[addyosmani]

This list looks like a good structure for the intro to build systems. Absolutely agree we should talk about some of the history as there's bound to be readers who will want to know what's been around before Grunt/Gulp etc. Would you like to file a PR to add these to the index in the readme?

PS: I really need to update that old blog post :)

[tomByrer]

Thanks for the feedback Addy. Sure, I'd like to wait for a few more people chiming in (likely the w/e; let people recover from NYD).

[wilmoore]

+1. Probably would be a good idea to talk about make and at what point it starts to get limited and where it may be useful.

[tomByrer]

Thanks @wilmoore, yes make should get a paragraph or 2.

I'm not sure if history should come first, or 'general advantages/disadvantages' should be touched upon first? hmmm...

[tomByrer]

Title: Evolution of Build Tools

[sindresorhus]

@tomByrer i like it.

[skusunam]

May be "maven" too. For some reason "Grunt" (npm install) looks\feels like Maven to me :)

[addyosmani]

Would someone like to take ownership of authoring this chapter?

[kylebradshaw]

speaking of Maven, would love to see a chapter on integration w/ Maven. I know that's something at the enterprise level would get some adoption.

[sindresorhus]

@skusunam @kylebradshaw as mentioned in #23 (comment) we're going to stick with JS build-systems in the first version.

[bevacqua]

@addyosmani I might take a shot at this one.

Quick questions:

• Is there a style guide I should conform to?
• How long should it be?
• Is there a deadline?

[sindresorhus]

Is there a style guide I should conform to?

https://github.com/tooling/authoring-styleguide

[tomByrer]

https://github.com/tooling/authoring-styleguide

I think I found a decent example of what may conform to this style here: http://www.winwithoutpitching.com/manifesto?toc

Is there a deadline?

I think Andy wants us to get a move-on. I planned on helping with this, but won't really have time until later next week (swamped with 3 projects). But to help prime the pump, here is an outline, though please disregard if you have a more exciting angle:

1. Programmers' job is to make life easier for others.
2. Build tools are to make life easier for ourselves.
3. Early early build tools
   • make for C, popular in Linux, a popular web hosting platform
   • my friend's build system at IBM that superseded their weekly floppy-disk compilation
4. Early web tool conveniences
   • putting multiple tools available inside an editor
     • Allaire Homesite that could call external validators, CSS editor (TopStyle)
     • IDEs & other suites
5. Evolution of build tools for web
   • shell macros
   • make for web assets
   • rake
   • ant
6. (to me, Grunt ideas came out of using ant)

Like I said, just some ideas. Perhaps 5 & 6 should be in a separate chapter to keep the chapters short. I'm flip-flopping where 4 should go.
Please run with it @bevacqua; the worst that can happen is your draft will be edited :)

[sindresorhus]

@tomByrer this all looks good to me :)

[EMMANUEL-ALX]

Nice 👍