Fast, Bullet-Proof Builds
taming grunt (or whatever)
and npm (or whatever)
@HTML5DevConf in SF (Spring 2014)
Agenda
- Who I am
- What's grunt and what's npm
- NPM problems and solutions
- Grunt problems and solutions
Who is this person?
What are Npm/Grunt?
Simple Use Cases
example npm package
What we use Grunt for
SOLVING THE HARD PROBLEMS: Npm
This is your brain
It's relying on the internet for builds
CI? Well as long as Things are ONline
What's up With NPM?
Well uptime is not so great
March 2014:
A Forumla:
Multiple weekly outages
+
Crunch time
------------------------------------
Irritable backend devs
Really angry ops team
Super sad frontend devs ':(
How NPM Installs Dependencies
NPM Solution 1: Archives
The dumb/easy way
back in the day there was this format called tar
also zip if you're into that sorta thing
also zip if you're into that sorta thing
NPM Solution 2: NGinx Proxy Cache
with extras...
Router
Proxy
Cache
NPM
Private Registry
NPM Solution 2 (cont): Kappa
NPM Solution 2 (CONT): ReggiE
NPM Solution 3
Sinopia
Npm Solution 4
Heroku/Gemfury
Other NPM Notes:
- `npm shrinkwrap` ~= pip freeze
- `npm link` = git submodules (but less sucky)
- `npm dedupe` will reduce file size by over half
- `npm prune` will remove uninstalled lingering packages
- NEVER add github dependencies!!!!!!!!!!
SOLVING THE HARD PROBLEMS: grunt
What's up with Grunt (or anything)
Requirements:
- Run Scripts
- Run Scripts Fast
- Be able to build dependencies
- Do it in a non-ugly syntax
Building Dependencies
Running grunt inside of node modules, doesn't work
(might be an anti-pattern as well, depending on your architecture)
Grunt Syntax and Dependencies
grunt.loadTasks is a big deal
Before this:
- 1 gruntfile or a bunch of require statements
- no way to load tasks from other repos
Note: loadTasks isn't really well advertised in the grunt docs.
No examples, but there are blog posts out there
Grunt Syntax PT2
Grunt Syntax 3: Requiring Tasks
Grunt Speed
Grunt Clean?
Links
Simple/Clean Gruntfile example:
Blog Post on cleaning up grunt at EB:
Closing Thoughts
- Our tools are fine
- Stop building, build systems
- Stop making package managers
- Let's solve the hard problems