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Hello, World!

// bobfile.js
var bob = require( 'builder-bob' );

var builder = module.exports = function( bob ){

    // Create the "build" job.
    var buildJob = bob.createJob( 'build', function(){
        console.log( 'Hello, World!' );
    });

    // Always return bob. :)
    return bob;

};// /export()

builder( bob ).getJob( 'build' ).run();

Now run bob.

node bobfile.js

The purpose of builder-bob is to remove the limitations of gulp, grunt, webpack, and other builder tools I've tried that didn't quite do all that I wanted them to do. This build tool is for those who know how to write code and are familiar with promises.

Things I liked about other solutions:

• Gulp's syntax is just JavaScript. I'm a developer so this makes sense for me.
• Gulp's use of globs for loading src files can also be used to load sub-project build files or "non-tracked" distribution build files.
• Gruntfiles being an exported module allows it to be included in other scripts. I can use this idea for compiling sub-projects before compiling the main project.

Promises

I''ve been a big fan of promises. Ever since I was forced into asychronous programming, I have always been challenged with writing async code that is readable in a linear sequencial order. I think promises can be used as a primary component in a build tool to control flow and build order. I prefer to use q for promises rather than native JavaScript promises just because of familiarity.

The Overall idea

Here's some pseudo code to illustrate the concept.

// bobfile.js
module.exports = function( bob ){

    // Create the "build" job.
    var buildJob = bob.createJob( 'build' );

    // Asynchronously concatenate the css and js files together.
    buildJob.addTask( 'concat', function(){
        return Q.all([
            concat([
                'file1.css',
                'file2.css'
            ], 'file3.css' ),
            
            concat([
                'file1.js',
                'file2.js'
            ], 'file3.js' ),
        ]);
    });

    // Copy both compiled files to the public_html directory.
    buildJob.addTask( 'distribute', function(){
        return copy([
            'file3.css',
            'file3.js'
        ], '/var/public_html' )
    });

    // Create a "watch" job.
    var watchJob = bob.createJob( 'watch', function(){

        return watch( './src', function( cPathChanged ){

            // A file was changed.
            console.log( 'Changed:', cPathChanged );

            // Run the build job.
            buildJob.run();

        });
    });

    // Always return bob. :)
    return bob;

};// /export()

Once this is done we can run the build job.

// build.js
var bob = require( 'builder-bob' );
require( './bobfile.js' )( bob );

bob.getJob( 'build' ).run();

We can also run the watch job to build when files change by just changing the job name in the previous example.

bob.getJob( 'watch' ).run();

Possible CLI Use

I haven't built a cli yet, but with the preivous two bobfiles we could run the build job.

bob build

We could also run the watch job to build when files change.

bob watch