[wwwigham]

Many a time I have begun a node project, and many a time I have started under the basic premise of "I'll just use an npm task for this one little build task". Task runners do seem to add a bit of complexity to a project which new contributors sometimes find friction in. As the project grows and I add more and more tasks - for linting, building sub projects, testing, etc - I end up writing "glue" js files which get called by npm to get the desired output of a library or tool, or to compose a set of tools in the way I need. After a while you realize its been done before, and in a composable way - you're writing gulp and grunt tasks without actually calling gulp or grunt, and you've ceded reusing any existing code for it. Upon this realization I normally realize I can pull in gulp and then discard a large chunk of my handwritten tasks in favor of easily composing task runner plugins.

Also, minor nit: The author claims `&&` is "cross platform". I regret to inform him it is not. It may well work for bash and cmd.exe but it has been disallowed as a command seperator in powershell for a few versions. Aiming for cross-shell compatible commands is more of a minefield than you'd expect - I actually knew someone who'd rewired a ruby DSL to use for a shell. I've found it best for crossplat to write as much in JS as possible and just let npm tasks call out to scripts, to use as little of the shell as possible.

[grb423]

This has been my experience too. I have every intention to use npm tasks but wind up pulling in gulp when my js "glue" gets too lengthy. I wind up wondering yet again why I wanted to omit gulp. The tasks are super readable and, I think, easier for new contributors than the pipes and ampers and glue scripts that my npm tasks were growing.