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I use Webpack in a couple of projects, but it only seems to fit well for single page applications that fit their near-standard configurations. We tried to repl

I use Webpack in a couple of projects, but it only seems to fit well for single page applications that fit their near-standard configurations. We tried to replace Gulp with it at work for some relatively complex software but it was an absolute nightmare; Webpack is highly opinionated and to get it to build multiple different targets with different configurations requires jumping through a lot of hoops or worse, having to have separate Webpack configs and different build commands for each different asset target. The last straw for us was how messy it got trying to build our LESS at the same time. Packaging all the LESS into your compiled JS, then having to extract it to put it in other files is absolutely ridiculous.

finchisko 9y ago
That is something I forgot to mention. Webpack is great for SPAs and not so great for classic site with lot of html files. You can have multiple entries (html files), but share common chunks between them might be difficult in some special cases.
- cytzol 9y ago
  > You can have multiple entries (html files), but share common chunks between them might be difficult in some special cases. This is what I'm trying to do at the moment -- create a static site that's just a bunch of HTML files, while still taking advantage of Sass, CSS modules, and Vue.js components. (God, I love scoped CSS so much.) I'm sure there's a way to get Webpack to do what I want, but I haven't found it yet. prerender-spa-plugin has been a huge help, though. It seems very similar to when I was learning Git: I know what I want to do, but Git's interface uses a level one layer lower than the one I'm operating on. "Undo the last commit", not "Reset the working tree to the previous commit's, but leave the staging area intact". Webpack's interface seems too abstract for what I want. I want to think in terms of individual pages, not of entry points; components, rather than chunks. Hopefully in five years when flat HTML files are vogue again there'll be a friendlier interface on top of it all. Edit: I don't mean to be 100% negative in my comment! Webpack has certainly helped me solve problems that, previously, I haven't been able to solve. That alone is great. I just wish it'll go "click" so I can "get" it.
  - finchisko 9y ago
    If I understand you correctly. You basically want to create completely static website with no javascript (or very little). Something like server side rendering, but without server (or to be precise with only http server) :-). And you've already found webpack module for the job.
    - cytzol 9y ago
      Yeah, you got it. I have a webpack.config.js that compiles everything, bundles it together, and spits out a bunch of HTML files. But what I don't have is the confidence that I'm doing things the right way and not using Webpack inappropriately!
    - douche 9y ago
      Sounds like a plain-old ASP.NET site with Razor partials.
  - mayank 9y ago
    Shameless plug, but I've got a project that builds a static site using Webpack 2 without having to configure it: https://github.com/iceroad/martinet https://github.com/iceroad/martinet Contributions welcome!

finchisko 9y ago

That is something I forgot to mention. Webpack is great for SPAs and not so great for classic site with lot of html files. You can have multiple entries (html files), but share common chunks between them might be difficult in some special cases.

cytzol 9y ago
> You can have multiple entries (html files), but share common chunks between them might be difficult in some special cases. This is what I'm trying to do at the moment -- create a static site that's just a bunch of HTML files, while still taking advantage of Sass, CSS modules, and Vue.js components. (God, I love scoped CSS so much.) I'm sure there's a way to get Webpack to do what I want, but I haven't found it yet. prerender-spa-plugin has been a huge help, though. It seems very similar to when I was learning Git: I know what I want to do, but Git's interface uses a level one layer lower than the one I'm operating on. "Undo the last commit", not "Reset the working tree to the previous commit's, but leave the staging area intact". Webpack's interface seems too abstract for what I want. I want to think in terms of individual pages, not of entry points; components, rather than chunks. Hopefully in five years when flat HTML files are vogue again there'll be a friendlier interface on top of it all. Edit: I don't mean to be 100% negative in my comment! Webpack has certainly helped me solve problems that, previously, I haven't been able to solve. That alone is great. I just wish it'll go "click" so I can "get" it.
- finchisko 9y ago
  If I understand you correctly. You basically want to create completely static website with no javascript (or very little). Something like server side rendering, but without server (or to be precise with only http server) :-). And you've already found webpack module for the job.
  - cytzol 9y ago
    Yeah, you got it. I have a webpack.config.js that compiles everything, bundles it together, and spits out a bunch of HTML files. But what I don't have is the confidence that I'm doing things the right way and not using Webpack inappropriately!
  - douche 9y ago
    Sounds like a plain-old ASP.NET site with Razor partials.
- mayank 9y ago
  Shameless plug, but I've got a project that builds a static site using Webpack 2 without having to configure it: https://github.com/iceroad/martinet https://github.com/iceroad/martinet Contributions welcome!