Frontend automation: bring it to the next level - at jsDay Italy 2017

In the last years, the complexity of front end development has exponentially grown making it really difficult to keep up with all the new solutions being developed. Maintaining and configuring automation tools is becoming a real burden, very difficult for newcomers and time consuming for experienced developers.
You'll see how it's possible to improve your project's automation using several techniques, tricks, and tools.

At the end, you will be able to improve your developer experience while maintaining and evolving your project's automation.

Transcript

1. FRONTEND AUTOMATION BRING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL jsDay 2017
2. MATTEO RONCHI @CEF62 - GITHUB/CEF62 SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER AT WORKWAVE PROUD MEMBER OF FEVR
3. A LITTLE HISTORY
4. EVERYTHING STARTED TO CHANGE AROUND 2010
5. 2013: FRONTEND-OPS DEFINED BY Alex Sexton
6. In a team, everyone should have a role and fulfill a specific purpose -- anonymous
7. MODERN FRONTEND DEVELOPMENT AIN'T ANY DIFFERENT
8. WE ASK FRONTEND DEVELOPERS TO FULFILL MULTIPLE ROLES THAT REQUIRE FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SKILL SETS
10. FRONTED DEVELOPMENT IS HARD
11. 2015: TRANSPILE ALL THE THINGS! 2016: JAVASCRIPT FATIGUE 2017: TAKING BACK CONTROL! (HOPEFULLY...) ☔
12. THE PROBLEM WE FACE
13. ALWAYS EVOLVING STANDARDS
14. ALWAYS EVOLVING STACK OF TOOLS
15. TOO MANY OPTIONS
16. TOO MANY UNSTABLE OPTIONS
17. WHAT YOU CAN DO
18. GROW INTERNAL EXPERTISE
19. KNOWLEDGE BRINGS UNDERSTANDING AND BETTER CHOICES, WHICH LEADS TO FEWER RISKS AND MORE MAINTAINABLE PROJECTS
20. CREATE A CURATED LIST OF SKILLED INDIVIDUALS TO FOLLOW
21. DON'T PANIC! YOU WILL BREAK THINGS MOST OF THE TIME
22. RESERVE A MINIMUM TIME EVERY WEEK TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR PROJECT
23. AVOID BOILERPLATES AND GENERATORS, PREFER SMALL TOOLS TRY TO UNDERSTAND HOW THEY WORK INSTEAD OF BLINDLY USING THEM
24. DO YOU TEST YOUR CODE? YOU SHOULD ALSO TEST YOUR PROJECT'S AUTOMATION
25. ORGANIZE YOUR AUTOMATION AND DECOUPLE IT FROM THE PROJECT
26. USE NPM SCRIPTS, YOUR PROJECT ALREADY HAS THEM ENABLED USE PLAIN NODE MODULES FOR YOUR AUTOMATION WORKFLOWS
27. MOVE YOUR AUTOMATION TO A SEPARATE REPOSITORY
28. DEMO RUN-IT DEMO SCRIPTS
29. AT THE BARE MINIMUM TRY TO ISOLATE GENERIC PROCESSES AND AUTOMATION YOU WILL BE SURPRISED BY HOW MUCH CODE CAN BE REUSED ACROSS PROJECTS
30. YOUR AUTOMATION IS NEVER FINISHED
31. YOUR PROJECT'S AUTOMATION NEEDS TO BE CARED FOR AND WELL GROOMED YOUR EFFORT WILL BE REPAID TENFOLD
32. DEVELOPER EXPERIENCE MATTERS
33. DOCUMENT YOUR SCRIPTS AND THEIR PURPOSE A CONCISE DESCRIPTION IS OFTEN MORE THAN ENOUGH.
34. YOUR AUTOMATION HAS TO WORK BUT DOESN'T NEED TO BE UGLY OR FRUSTRATING. YOU KNOW BETTER! ALWAYS DOGFOOD YOUR OWN TOOLS!
35. Thanks @cef62 https://joind.in/talk/eba12