[lowboy]

Build utilities like Grunt or Gulp will be hopefully more compatible across systems than shell scripts will be. I'm not too familiar with Node's support on various platforms, but I'd wager that it's probably decent.

Gruntfiles and Gulpfiles are in javascript too, which lowers the barrier for entry for developers who aren't as versed in linux.

Is there a shell script equivalent to npm? Sidenote, that could be really useful as a service.

[leobelle]

> Grunt or Gulp will be hopefully more compatible across systems than shell scripts will be.

On your own stack and dev environment, why would you care about compatibility of shell scripts? Do you change your stack much?

[joshuacc]

For open-source JavaScript projects, using Grunt or another Node-based tool makes it easier for Windows users to contribute. Node has excellent Windows support, while shell scripts are mostly the domain of *nix.

[lowboy]

Yeah. In the past three years I've gone from Windows, to a CentOS VM, to an Ubuntu VM, now on OS X. Node has worked on all of those platforms. I can't say the same for my .BAT files.