Reversing Live Site into JS Build System

Hi all,
I’m learning how to use JS Build Systems and LESS for upcoming websites. I’ve decided to use Gulp, but this is a conceptual question for which I’m not even sure of the right search terms.

The question: Once a site is built and in production, how does one get it back into the build system for updates and maintenance? I work with two sceanarios where I need this. 1) When another developer has made changes and I need to download the live version as the most current. 2) When I want to switch from my desktop to my laptop when I’m out of the office.

Is this something version control could handle?

Thanks for any insight anyone can provide.
~ Christine

Hi Christine,

Once you start pre-processing your JS/CSS then anytime you or another developer want to make changes you’ll need a copy of the source files and the build system.

As you mention, using a version control system like Git would be really useful in this situation. My suggestion would be to create a master repository with an online service like GitHub or BitBucket and commit your project source files and build config (and the built files, if you’re not building on the server). This way if you or anyone else needs to work on the site, you can pull the up-to-date code into a local repository to make your changes.

If you use npm to install your build tools (gulp etc.) then all another dev has to do is clone the repo and run npm install and they’ll get a copy of your setup, configured and ready to go.

2 Likes

Thank you @fretburner ! I can picture exactly how this would work and that’s what I needed.

Best!
~Christine

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