Express an opinion on a js build process

[devinrhode2]

1. Between all of us, come to an agreement on the best frontend javascript build process.
2. Express that with the jQuery include.

Perhaps we find Require.js with the optimizer is the best. Perhaps something else like component or something like browserify, I'm not too sure and not many people are, so it would be useful to have a great approach figured out by HTML5-Boilerplate.

Maybe nothing currently out there is quite good enough, so h5bp can fork something and get it up to par, and in a few months we'll have a truly viable solution for the majority of the web.

The breaks the purity of the pure html we have now, but pushes developers and the web forward.

[necolas]

This issue is beyond the scope of the HTML5 Boilerplate project. It aims to play nice with any approach to build processes, module loading, or package management and to lend itself to integration within larger and more specific/opinionated projects.

You might want to look at projects like Grunt and Yeoman.

[devinrhode2]

I disagree. HTML5 Boilerplate includes jQuery and modernizr as plain script tags. This implicitly recommends not having a build process at all, simply by the omission of a build process. Same idea as lying by omission.

It's ok to have no build process, things will still work. HTML5 Boilerplate of course also omits a backend, but if you want certain things to work, you fundamentally need a backend. There's no default low quality recommendation.

It's easy to say it's beyond the scope of the project. But you can't deny that the web is hurting from lacking a strong, well known, and common build process. In my opinion, HTML5 Boilerplate has a perfect opportunity to give a solid suggestion on a build process. Maybe you don't use it, but there's at least some build process by default. That's better than throwing our hands up and not suggesting one at all.

@addyosmani @paulirish @sindresorhus

[devinrhode2]

Just remembered that HTML5 Boilerplate used to have a build script.. so I'm digging through old issues discussing it.

[alrra]

Just remembered that HTML5 Boilerplate used to have a build script...

@devinrhode2 see: https://github.com/h5bp/ant-build-script & https://github.com/h5bp/node-build-script

[devinrhode2]

Already ahead of ya ;)
yeoman = node-build-script++ (basically. It started as a fork of it)

[devinrhode2]

Ok, given that yeoman has 100+ issues open right now, I think it's best to let the dust settle with it for a good period of time before official having integration with HTML5 Boilerplate. But there's another fundamental issue, yeoman is well opinionated... soo... perhaps we'd want to split yeoman into something like a yeoman core and a yeoman main, or just yeoman and then have yeoman extras. Ideally the download would be small so it's not much to expect the web to start widely adopting it. I'm thinking the core will be mostly node-build-script plus the raw enhancements to that code.

@yeoman

[drublic]

There is Yeoman as a development-tool which is based on Grunt. Check out Grunt if you want to. There is also Yeoman Generators which lets you integrate own projects into the workflow of Yeoman. Furthermore Yeoman integrates HTML5 Boilerplate by default.

Also there was a discussion in issue #1132 to integrate Grunt into the project and there was #1140 to discuss the integration of a build process for CSS. We decided not to integrate anything like that for the moment.

I think we all agree that a build step for scripts and styles is needed in every project, but as Nicolas already stated it is not in the scope of this project anymore.

[sindresorhus]

^ what Hans Christan said