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Why I Switched from Assetic to Gulp

tl;dr Assetic was created when there were no real frontend tools for processing and combining CSS/JS. But now there are, and unless you feel really uncomfortable with Node.js, I recommend using Gulp instead of Assetic.

Assetic (PHP library) does one simple job: processes and combines assets. If you've used the Symfony framework, you've probably used it: it's still the recommended tool for taking CSS and JS files, putting them through filters (e.g. Sass, Uglify) and then combining them into one file for production.

But today, I don't recommend using Assetic. Assetic was created back when there were no industry-standard solutions for processing and combining assets. So each language (framework) created their own: Assetic is based off of webassets from Python. And it works really well.

Node.js - and the explosion of packages available via npm - has changed all that. There now are asset-processing tools that can be used by PHP nerds, Python dorks, Java Dude(ttes) and frontend geeks. In this new world, the tool I like most is Gulp, because it's powerful, and just fun. Using it over Assetic has some real-world advantages:

Gulp versus Assetic: Pros

  1. More people are working on Gulp than Assetic: i.e. you have more tools;
  2. More people are using Gulp than Assetic: i.e. you find more help on StackOverflow;
  3. You already know JavaScript: i.e. it's not so scary (and I'll show you).

What about disadvantages? Well, there is one, and it's legit:

Gulp versus Assetic: Cons

  1. Gulp adds a new layer to your dev stack (Node.js) and your learning curve;

This last disadvantage is real: if you're low on time, already understand Assetic, and need to do some basic frontend processing: keep using it and stop reading. It's totally ok - Assetic is still a great tool for your case.

For everyone else, let's look at Gulp really quickly in 3 steps:

1) Use Gulp to create Command-Line Tasks

In the simplest sense, Gulp let's you create command-line tasks (like Symfony's app/console). After installing gulp (npm install gulp), you create a single file called gulpfile.js. This example creates a single task, which prints a message:

var gulp = require('gulp');

gulp.task('default', function() {
    console.log('GULP THIS!');
});

To run it, just do:

gulp default

Got the idea?

2) Read and Process Files

Gulp could be used for anything, but usually you're doing the same thing: reading some files (e.g. .scss files), processing them (e.g. through Sass) then writing out the new files:

var gulp = require('gulp');
var sass = require('gulp-sass');

gulp.task('default', function() {
    gulp.src('app/Resources/assets/sass/**/*.scss')
        .pipe(sass())
        .pipe(gulp.dest('web/css'));
});

Now, any .scss files in the sass directory (recursive - that's the extra /** part) will have a processed .css version in web/css.

3) Combine Files (and a lot more)

Now that our .scss files have been processed, why not combine them all into 1 CSS file? That's just a couple extra lines:

var gulp = require('gulp');
var sass = require('gulp-sass');
var concat = require('gulp-concat');

gulp.task('default', function() {
    gulp.src('app/Resources/assets/sass/**/*.scss')
        .pipe(sass())
        .pipe(concat('main.css'))
        .pipe(gulp.dest('web/css'));
});

Run gulp default again (or just gulp, which triggers the default automatically) to process and concatenate all your Sass files into one, main.css.

Feel good? If you want to get a whole working setup, you can find that in our Gulp! tutorial, which includes things like: sourcemaps, minification, uglification and cache busting/versioning.

If you've worked with Gulp and have any tips or warnings for others, I'd love it if you shared.

Cheers!