I definitely think Gulp and Webpack have a place. Where you have to write a Makefile fresh every time for every type of project, Gulp and Webpack come prepared

I definitely think Gulp and Webpack have a place. Where you have to write a Makefile fresh every time for every type of project, Gulp and Webpack come prepared with JS-specific stuff. That's perfect for a throwaway project or a small codebase where build performance and maintenance really don't matter. My issue is that people who need serious solutions forgo Make because "tabs, man", or because Webpack has pretty console output.