Appendix B. JavaScript Tools
Build Tools
Though many build tools are not JavaScript-specific, they can still be quite useful in managing your large JavaScript projects:
- Ant
My preferred build tool for JavaScript projects. A Java-based build system.
- Buildy
A Node.js-based build system with built-in support for tasks related to JavaScript and CSS.
- Gmake
An older build tool thatâs still popular among Unix devotees. Gmake is used by jQuery.
- Grunt
A Node.js-based build system with built-in support for JavaScript-related tasks like minification and concatenation.
- Jammit
A Ruby-based asset packager that handles minification, validation, and more.
- Jasy
A Python-based build system.
- Rake
A utility similar to Gmake written in Ruby. Projects that use Sass, a popular CSS preprocessor, tend to use Rake.
- Sprockets
A Rack-based build system.
Documentation Generators
Documentation generators create documentation from comments placed in source code:
- Docco
A side-by-side documentation generator, showing documents alongside code. Written in CoffeeScript.
- Dojo Documentation Tools
The official documentation generator of Dojo. Written in PHP.
- JoDoc
A JavaScript documentation generator that uses Markdown syntax. Written in JavaScript.
- JSDoc ToolKit
A Java-based documentation generator. One of the most frequently used documentation generators.
- Natural Docs
A general-purpose documentation generator that works with multiple languages. Written in Perl.
- NDoc
A JavaScript port of PDoc.
- PDoc
The official documentation generator of Prototype. ...
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