Level: Introductory
There are client side package managers and build systems aplenty nowadays. We have grunt, bower, gulp, nuget, msbuild, npm, and many others. Visual Studio now has built in support for Grunt, Bower, and Gulp. Why so many systems? Isn't Visual Studio just fine with the tools that we currently use?
ASP.NET has typically done things its own way for many years, which has pros and cons. Now that there is a vast ecosystem of other technologies, many that now integrate and run just fine on Windows, it makes sense to bring in some of the other tools developers use with much success in other ecosystems. Grunt/gulp lets you run client side Javascript tasks, like minifying a code file, or prepping your code like jQuery uses Grunt for. Bower is a package manager typically used for Javascript libraries that allows you to define, version, and retrieve your client side dependencies. These tools fill the gap in the development pipeline. Once you see their power, you will understand their well deserved place in the ecosystem. Come find out how to utilize these great tools in your Web development workflow.
You will learn:
- About how NuGet, Grunt, Bower, and Gulp fit into the development ecosystem, where they may overlap, and how they differ
- What Bower is and how to utilize it
- What Grunt/Gulp are and how to implement them into your workflow