Why

#Why we created Crafty

This package is a helper to compile your scripts to the best, optimized, compressed and understood by all browser versions of the code you write.

It takes the best tools choices of the community between the amount of options for the task at hand (Sass, Less, Stylus, PostCSS, Traceur, Babel, rollup.js, Browserify, Webpack, Pundle, ESLint, JSHint, Gulp, Broccoli, Grunt) With a consideration for features, configurability, update frequency, compatibility and community.

All these tools are then configured to work together seamlessly and to get the best out of each one.

#Features

We support the latest EcmaScript Specifications, Advanced CSS with the help of PostCSS and also TypeScript.

The features are best explained in each specific section : JavaScript, TypeScript, CSS

#Update frequency

Almost all the tools we use in this project are update more than once a month. Keeping the more than 70 dependencies up to date on this project is a continuous task. But it would be even more complex if it needs to be done on all Swissquote projects separately.

#Compatibility

The tools and plugins are chosen to work together. We made Pull Requests to some projects to ensure they are compatible with one another and we keep track of the open problems.

#Configurability

All tools of this type have dozens of configuration options. Knowing them all is impossible. With Crafty we embedded all options that need to respect the Swissquote Standards (Our CSS and JavaScript Guideline for example)

But we also expose a lot of configuration options to the final user. By doing it this way, you can have advanced features without any complex configuration, but can tweak most configurations to your specific needs.

#Community

The community around tools like Babel, ESLint, Webpack and others are thriving. Tens of issues are created and resolved each week, new features come often, always improved documentation and reliability.

#Why we developed our solution instead of an existing one

Some solutions outside Swissquote do a similar job, like neutrino. But they tend to be too opinionated and not offering options to tailor the solution to our needs. Or they are made for one specific tool.

For example:

• create-react-app is meant to create React applications with Babel and Webpack. You are limited to one bundle.
• neutrino is more configurable but still allows to is limited to one bundle and Webpack.