Front-end package manager #55
Description
As discussed in #9 and explored in #34, a suitable package manager needs to be found (or written!) for usage in Headstart.
Both Bower and Duo are great projects in itself, but the lack of being able to write to specific folder without lengthy hacks remains a huge issue for me. Ever since starting this project, is has been a goal to take away the burden of having to manually write <link> or <script> tags for every file you want included, and having a clean, structured folder setup does the trick very well.
I personally don't have an issue with having to download the files from Github, and then moving them into a folder. There seems to be a demand for a package manager though, and since I also prefer automation over manual labour, I will keep this issue open until a suited solution can be built in.
Suggestions are welcome, as is help in finding an alternative!
EDIT
Here's a great write-up on existing solutions and their differences.
EDIT 2
It also looks like NPM is working on a solution. This part especially matches entirely what I want from a package manager:
- a API for downloading packages from the registry
- a “cache” API that can store, read and unpack packages locally
- an installer API that places packages into your project in the right location
In other words, a small API like Bower that allows downloads from anywhere (or "the registry"), with versioning, but without any form of concatenation or AMD-ifying/RequireJs-ifying. And on top of that, it leaves you with single files exactly where you want them to end up.