Writing Javascript without a build system
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I make a lot of small simple websites, I have approximately 0 maintenance energy for any of them, and I change them very infrequently.
My goal is that if I have a site that I made 3 or 5 years ago, I’d like to be able to, in 20 minutes:
- get the source from github on a new computer
- make some changes
- put it on the internet
But my experience with build systems (not just Javascript build systems!), is that if you have a 5-year-old site, often it’s a huge pain to get the site built again.
I have websites that I made in middle school that I’m able to get up and running in roughly as much time as it takes to find the old folders.
I also have websites that I am unable to run on my new laptop because the dependencies are too out of date and now supported on my new architecture.