NPM is a Node.js package manager that comes bundled with the installation of Node.js. It keeps track of all dependencies for your Node.js projects and gives you full control over managing them. NPM makes is easy to reuse thousands of existing open source packages that solve a multitude of common problems, as well as share your own code with the community through the NPM registry. Since JavaScript is now being…

Gradle is a free Java build tool for project automation, similar to Ant and Maven. It’s used by software developers working in Java for running common repetitive tasks in project lifecycle, like compiling code, resolving dependencies, packaging, unit testing, code execution and deployment. Google positioned Gradle as the build system of choice for Android and integrated it in Android Studio. Gradle combines approaches of Ant and Maven providing a middle…

Introduction Gulp is a command line task runner utilizing Node.js platform. It runs custom defined repetitious tasks and manages process automation. What makes Gulp different from other task runners is that it uses Node streams, piping output from one task as an input to the next. It reads a file once, processes it through multiple tasks, and then writes the output file. This results in faster builds because there is…

Grunt is a command line Javascript task runner utilizing Node.js platform. It runs custom defined repetitious tasks and manages process automation. The project’s homepage lists many big players in software development that use Grunt in their development as part of continuous integration workflow. Use case of Grunt.js Let’s say you’re a front-end developer and you use Sass, some CoffeeScript, need to minimize your stylesheets and scripts (asset compilation), and on…