Yake

The name, __Y__et another j/Y/R AKE.

Why - thats takes a bit longer.

Like a number of folks I got tired of grunt and gulp with all their dependencies and having to learn how to use plugins. Also I am a bit old school having been brought up on (and before) make. Though I have used make in a number of php and js projects it is a bit too temperamental for my taste, does not translate to the modern generation well, and further php and js projects tend not to require the file task dependencies that are makes diet.

I was introduced to using npm together with ./taskfile for building and really liked the simplicity. However when one has node+javascript available writing even a small shell script does not taste right. I have been spoiled by node+javascript+chrome debugger.

Hence I went looking for a simple javascript solution.

That's when I found jake, and a very nice tool it is too.

But still it seemed a little too sophisticated, and by now I was looking for a little javascript project where I could play around with functional programming ideas that I had been reading about.

So I got the idea of implementing a cut down jake in my version of a functional approach.

Requirements

So this is the list of my requirements:

• written in javascript and node
• run either like Rake/jake or as ./taskfile (see usage)
• easy command line execution
• undertand preresuisite tasks
• be lightweight (both in number of dependencies and the length of the task file). If it is as convenient as taskfile I will be satisfied
• support task descriptions and -T option
• pass through colored output for example from webpack

On top of that some things it did not have to do:

• have file tasks like r/jake
• plugins for things like webpack, less etc - simply use the command line

And finally things I might get it to do eventually if I find the need:

• have watch tasks built in
• async tasks
• passing arguments from the command line through to task action functions

Install

Simple

	npm --save-dev install yake

Usage

As noted above, a goal was to allow this tool to be used in either of two ways.

As a command

As in

	yake [options] taskname arg1 arg2 .... argn
	
	where options are:
	
		-T --showTasks 	show all tasks with descriptions
		-f --file			path to a config file, defaults to one of ['yakefile']