An Attempt To Use Browserify

An Attempt To Use Browserify(wiredcraft.com)

14 points by dikunlun 12 years ago | 14 comments

hellopat 12 years ago |

The title is a bit misleading. Only a small part of the article mentions Browserify. I was hoping for the authors take on the struggles and efficiencies, as I'm at the point where I need to make the decision to use Browserify for my companies client heavy apps.

etler 12 years ago | |

I'm using browserify to share code between the client and server, and it works just how you want it to. The api is very simple. There's a command line utility, but I decided to use the direct API to integrate it with my build system. You give it the files you want to bundle up, and then it gives you an output stream. Super simple, and works with no hassles.

The only problem I had was with recursive requires, but I created a pull request fixing the problem, and the team was very responsive about getting it fixed. The fix was integrated and put out the same day, so I didn't have to deal with any delays.

fraserxv 12 years ago | |

@hellopat In case you want know more about using browerify for client side development, do check this: http://dontkry.com/posts/code/using-npm-on-the-client-side.h... http://dontkry.com/posts/code/browserify-and-the-universal-m...

taterbase 12 years ago | |

I'd be happy to answer any questions concerns you may have, I've had some decent experience with Browserify and I've loved it.

SkyMarshal 12 years ago | | |

Do you have any opinions on Require.js vs Browserify? I've been using Require.js recently, but just discovered Browserify, and there seems to be mixed opinions on these two, but most blog articles and the like seem a little dated. Probably will have to build something non-trivial in both to know for sure, but if you have any insight on these two, would be glad to hear it.

hellopat 12 years ago | | |

Thanks for the offer!

My main concern is non-CommonJS libraries. I haven't really had any luck with any of the Browserify shim modules out there. Any jQuery plugin that I've used with Browserify I ended up modifying myself to support CommonJS. Even then, I'm not sure I was doing it right.

Any insight?

masswerk 12 years ago |

Er ... "I can now grab the user's webcam stream, generate a GIF, and let the user download or share it on an image hosting platform. And all of this is done in the front-end using a lightweight interface!" ... that's 3 lines (sorry: 4) of native JS, we need node-modules for this?

secoif 12 years ago | |

you can generate a gif with native js?

masswerk 12 years ago | | |

Not exactly a gif-image, because of license restrictions (which may also be a problem with any OSS library), but image/png, image/jpeg and (Chrome) image/webp and any animations built of these. (This is a political issue and not a technical one.) To have gif, you would have to implement the algorithm by your own and pay fees or ...

fraserxv 12 years ago | | |

Yeap. Check out the code here. https://github.com/fraserxu/gifme There's an awesome library to do this. It's basically capture serval frames and use a algorithem to generate it.

smrtinsert 12 years ago |

I can't use this app unless it loses 80kb. Too bloated and heavyweight.

joemaller1 12 years ago |

This blew my mind. I've been dabbling in Node, but I had no idea this much was possible. The GifMe demo would have been nearly enough, but wow, thanks for posting this.