[cortesi]

I'm moving in a similar direction for similar reasons - but by shifting functionality out of the node ecosystem altogether. I recently released devd, a small, dev-focused HTTP server with build-in livereload which has taken the place of gulp livereload and node-based dev servers for many of my projects (https://github.com/cortesi/devd).

I'm now working on the next step. It's not quite ready to be announced yet, but I'm cooking up modd, a similarly focused tool for monitoring the file system and responding to changes (https://github.com/cortesi/modd). Modd has already supplanted gulp entirely for many of my use cases, and has replaced supervisor and a bunch of other tools to boot. Many of the actions triggered by modd for front-end projects are precisely invocations of npm scripts as described in the article. A few more features (desktop notifications with Growl/notify, and script access to the list of changed files), and modd will be ready for me to ask for public feedback.

Both modd and devd are small, single-purpose tools written in Go, released as statically compiled binaries with no external dependencies. I've tried to make them tight and focused, and if I get it right, they will hopefully be a refreshing change after gulp and grunt.

[EvanPlaice]

Why create devd when you could have just used live-server? It automatically injects the LiveReload stub and watches the directory for changes.

I guess, if your end goal is to move everything away from the node ecosystem. To each their own.

[cortesi]

Well, first, I think it's perfectly fine to have multiple takes on the same problem space. This is how we progress - people try different things, and we gradually figure out what works. Live-server does a specific set of things, and devd is a different take on a slightly wider set of things, and I think that's just dandy. The overlap is far from precise, and I think there's enough room for both devd and live-server (and for the many other tools that do similar things).

Second, not everything is node. Devd has lots of uses outside of node and even outside of front-end development.

Third, I probably wouldn't have written it if I didn't believe that devd did at least some things better than the current tools (at least for some people). You should try it - maybe you'll like it, and if you don't then that's fine too. As you say - to each their own. ;)

[EvanPlaice]

grumble reinventing wheels grumble

Live-server is capable of a lot more than I mentioned. There's also lite-server which is geared more toward SPAs.

Anyway, if you enjoy hacking on devd I won't fault you for it.

I'm not really looking to switch to go. I'm one of those weirdos who actually really likes JS. The massive NPM ecosystem just makes everything that much more fun.