A year ago, browserify was the dominant module bundler and webpack was the confusing alternative. Today, webpack is becoming the default choice. This shift happened quickly and reveals what developers actually value versus what they claim to value.
Tag: Build Tools
webpack has been around for two years, but it's starting to get attention as an alternative to browserify and RequireJS. After spending time configuring it, my reaction is: this is simultaneously brilliant and needlessly complex. The concepts are right, but the API fights you.
Everything Is A Module
Gulp launched last July as an alternative to Grunt, and the pitch is compelling: write code instead of configuration, use streams for efficiency, make builds faster. After migrating several Grunt projects to Gulp, I have thoughts about what's actually different and what's just rebranded complexity.
The Configuration vs Code Argument
Yeoman hit 1.0 last month, and I've been watching its evolution with interest. It's not just a scaffolding tool—it's Google's Chrome team making a bet about how frontend development should work. That bet is basically: conventions over configuration, and automation over manual setup.