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I don't know enough about make to know if this is correct, but the post last week on using make for js started of by saying "If you are writing a frontend app a

I don't know enough about make to know if this is correct, but the post last week on using make for js started of by saying "If you are writing a frontend app and you need code bundling you should absolutely use Webpack" which, aren't the majority of people using webpack writing frontend apps and need bundling? The other issue is that essentially no one uses make in frontend development. So you go and convert to make from something that was working fine and is the standard in that part of the industry and what's the pay off? Now no one in your team or who you hire knows how to change the build chain? Great.

dahart 9y ago
> aren't the majority of people using webpack writing frontend apps and need bundling? Webpack is pretty new. Lots and lots of websites were developed before webpack existed, and some of them still use make for builds. The majority of new web projects are probably webpack now. > The other issue is that essentially no one uses make in frontend development. I don't know how many people do or don't use make, but I've had two web jobs that did. One was my own company and I wrote the makefiles, so that's not exactly fair. :P The other was an established web app. In both cases, the biggest reason for the makefile was to integrate the Google Closure Compiler into the build. Last time I checked, Webpack didn't have support for the Closure compiler. I am aware that the Closure compiler isn't exactly the most popular js minification tool today, and isn't generally necessary with webpack. > So you go and convert to make from something that was working fine and is the standard in that part of the industry and what's the pay off? I agree with you generally, but I'm old enough that this also makes me chuckle a little. make was working fine and was the industry standard for decades before webpack or npm. Just before Webpack there was Gulp, and Gulp is essentially a re-invention of unix pipes and lots of the unix tools. Build systems made with gulpfiles have to bend over backwards to get right make's basic concepts like dependency evaluation, building a target only once, and skipping already built targets.
- markmark 9y ago
  There's a reasonable chance I'm older than you for what it's worth.

dahart 9y ago

> aren't the majority of people using webpack writing frontend apps and need bundling? Webpack is pretty new. Lots and lots of websites were developed before webpack existed, and some of them still use make for builds. The majority of new web projects are probably webpack now. > The other issue is that essentially no one uses make in frontend development. I don't know how many people do or don't use make, but I've had two web jobs that did. One was my own company and I wrote the makefiles, so that's not exactly fair. :P The other was an established web app. In both cases, the biggest reason for the makefile was to integrate the Google Closure Compiler into the build. Last time I checked, Webpack didn't have support for the Closure compiler. I am aware that the Closure compiler isn't exactly the most popular js minification tool today, and isn't generally necessary with webpack. > So you go and convert to make from something that was working fine and is the standard in that part of the industry and what's the pay off? I agree with you generally, but I'm old enough that this also makes me chuckle a little. make was working fine and was the industry standard for decades before webpack or npm. Just before Webpack there was Gulp, and Gulp is essentially a re-invention of unix pipes and lots of the unix tools. Build systems made with gulpfiles have to bend over backwards to get right make's basic concepts like dependency evaluation, building a target only once, and skipping already built targets.

markmark 9y ago
There's a reasonable chance I'm older than you for what it's worth.