As long as you're not trying to make the world's most complex build file do not feel that you need to use overly complex build tools. A better approach is to l

As long as you're not trying to make the world's most complex build file do not feel that you need to use overly complex build tools. A better approach is to learn the basics of writing Makefiles. Simple tools are good. And Make is reusable. Make also has the benefit that you can copy-paste lines into your shell to test them. This is something that is very awkward to do with Grunt or Gulp and it makes it a lot easier to debug problems. Generally when I say it to people they say "but if you have a complicated build process you need these tools!", and my response is "what business value did your 400+ line build process create and will it be worth the inevitable problems you will have to debug later?" It might be unpopular advice but if you create a project with far less dependencies then there is less that can break later on.