Also, though I found bower useful I disliked having yet another package manager, yet another manifest and yet another install step included in my development workflow. Using npm for both server and client side modules has been a dream.

That's why I prefer client-side loaders. All you have to do is copy the loader into a folder and create a .html file. I have my dev folder hosted by apache so I don't ever have to worry about starting some process, running npm install and watching it install the entire internet, etc.

Steps like these allow you to systematically control every aspect of the development process, and adapt. In the long run, these steps work in your favor.

They also allow you to hook into the more modern aspects of development. I mean, you don't want to type `npm install` --that's fine; what you're essentially saying is that this incredibly useful ecosystem is irrelevant to your needs. I find that very hard to believe.

Well, that's the beauty of it, for me. I run everything through gulp, so I don't need to remember to run the watch thingy - I type:

    gulp watch

    gulp dist

Client side loaders (et al AMD based RequireJS) are dumb. I've been there, done that. I'll minify my js code and then "just drop the .js file" into my page, and let gulp watch for changes.

Hell, you could even use a client-side loader exactly as you are doing with Browserify/Webpack. Just set up a watch task that builds unminified and there you go! It's just nice that they aren't dependent on a cli process. But unlike you, I'm not trying to convert anyone here, just pointing out that there are advantages to using client-side loaders. For example, it promotes separation of client-side code from server-side code. Using the same package.json file for both promotes bad practices like developing with the server running and writing code that's not easily testable without the server running.

Well you have to type something in order to start your project unless you like using file:/// URLs. "gulp watch" doesn't just run the watch task - it runs the entire dev environment with watch. How do you run multiple projects with Apache?

And while setting up these modules is a process, I only really have to do it once - I have a template directory I just copy into a new project. Then everything in the src/ directory gets processed accordingly once I type 'gulp watch'.

Apache serves everything under ~/dev and that's where I stick new client-side projects.

It's nice to be able to just start coding without the friction of setting up every project as though it were some large thing that would include production builds, automated tests, and many other developers. Of course you can work on those types of projects with client-side loaders just as easily.

I recommend trying out jspm: http://jspm.io/ It is all about removing the friction that people often have with client-side loaders (I have to maintain another config file, the horror! ;) but is also forward-compatible as it implements the upcoming ES6 module loading stuff. You can use CommonJS, AMD, or ES6, and mix and match the three.

1. git clone https://github.com/WINTR/grunt-frontend-scaffold

2. npm install; and then

3. grunt dev

...which watches everything on localhost:3000, including my unit tests and source code, and reloads on change. Dead simple, fast and consistent stuff and everything I could possibly need set up in less than 1 minute, every time.

Most teams, I imagine, work in a similar way.

Not to mention, if I wanted to pass over the project to another developer, I would just have to tell him to clone the repo and hit `npm install`.

    app.use('/js', browserify('./app/js', {
      transform: ['reactify', 'envify'],
      extensions: ['.jsx'],
      cache: app.get('env') !== 'development',
      minify: app.get('env') !== 'development',
      gzip: app.get('env') !== 'development',
      debug: app.get('env') === 'development',
      precompile: ['./app/app.js']
    }));