Build automation and deployment for Javascript

Question

Hi everyone, i work at the digital department of a public broadcaster, together with two other frontend developers. We're currently looking into improving our Javascript workflow and build processes. Stuff like packaging, minifying, versioning, etcetera.

In an ideal scenario, we would have a global repository for all Javascript-related libraries (like jQuery) and stuff we build ourselves, that can be easily included in lots of projects and versioned.

All of our backend developers use Maven for this process with their Java code. I'm wondering if people have experience with Maven and Javascript, or maybe with other tools that might be good (or better) for the job. And in general if people have good resources about setting up workflow / build processes for frontend and javascript development.

Answer 1

** edit ** Go straight for Jawr, keeping rest in awnser for alternatives ** edit **

First of all there's Ruby's rake which in theory can be used through jruby and in theory can be configured and run in the POM.

There's also Jake, but not sure if the latest Rhino supports CommonJS.

Whilst writing this awnser, I just came across Jawr which looks really interresting and there seems to be maven support/plugins.

The last option you already know about is dynamic loading using for example RequireJS or LABJS.

Answer 2

We use Hudson (http://hudson-ci.org/) to continuously build/integrate our Python (Django via zc.buildout), R and several other types of projects. Whenever someone checks in code to the central VCS, a build is triggered and the test suite(s) will run. The build and test status is shown on a central screen in the office.

Hudson not only builds and tests, but also checks for coding style and syntax errors using pep8 and pyflakes, amongst others. Javascript is only checked with jslint at this point, but we may unit-test that in the future using something like xpcshell (more info).

Answer 3

Hi Husky,

I would like to take a shot as the second half of your question, regarding deployment of javascript. Regardless if you're using Hudson, Maven, SVN, etc. for building and code repository, you can use an automated release deployment platform such as Nolio ASAP. This will provide not only integration with the build systems, but also enable a holistic deployment between all tiers; frontend, application, database, etc.

+Daniel