While I think it's a decent app, it just started to feel slow. There are cross-platform alternatives out there, but I haven’t dived into any of them. The beauty of that is that because it does write a CodeKit specific config file to your project directory, your settings are saved, allowing you to add the project back in the way it was before.īeyond that, the biggest drawback of CodeKit, particularly if you’re working in a team environment, is that it’s Mac only. CodeKit has a safe start option though that lets you restart it with no projects. While I have experienced it hanging or stalling, it’s generally because I haven’t set it to ignore a bunch of files that don’t need to be watched or because I’m too impatient with certain tasks. I honestly haven’t experienced too many issues or drawbacks with CodeKit. There are plenty of features that I’ve never touched that I think would suit even advanced developers. Their videos and documentation make it super easy to get up and running.You can install and setup certain frameworks such as Zurb Foundation, Bootstrap, and Tailwind.Node packages can be installed with a click of a button.The “auto-pause” feature for file watching when you’re using any version control app such as Tower.There is still some setup to do when using CodeKit for a project, but if your workflow is generally the same for most projects and you set your defaults right, the setup is super minimal. Setting up Gulp was something I loathed despite having a boilerplate to start from. I don’t have to mess around with config files I only partially understand. The CodeKit website states, “Build websites, not config files.” And that sums up the number one reason I love CodeKit. And honestly, if you’ve organized your assets well enough and you document your project’s requirements, the compiler tool you use isn’t going to matter. But even for those situations where I did use CodeKit and had to bring another developer in, it’s easy enough to switch out because CodeKit does nothing to your setup except add its config file, compile files, and, if you’ve opted for it, compress your images. I can’t force them to use it, so I use Laravel Mix instead. I would love to use CodeKit all the time, but sometimes I need to bring in another dev who doesn’t use or have CodeKit. I also tend to use CodeKit for projects where I know I’ll be the only one touching the code and that that will likely be the case for a long time, such as with a client site that I build and maintain for the long term. That said, in my experience, CodeKit can handle just about any sized project you throw at it. I tend to use CodeKit on smaller projects or projects I’ve inherited that used a different setup I don’t use. Ironically enough, my experience with Gulp made me understand CodeKit far better. I was still new to the whole compiling and processing “thing” so I didn’t fully get it, so I only used it for a brief time (and I hated the UI). I think I first used CodeKit 2 on a recommendation from a friend and colleague. Released in beta in 2011, CodeKit is a Mac-only app that provides a GUI for doing all the compiling and pre-processing you’d otherwise do on the command line. And that’s mainly why I currently use two specific tools: CodeKit and Laravel Mix. I’ve been in this game long enough to know where and what I want to devote my time and energy to. Not because I can’t learn them – or other programming languages for that matter – but because I just don’t want to. I consider myself more of a full-stack designer than anything, but I also call myself a front-end developer, which I realize can mean a boatload of different things depending on who you ask.Īll this to say that I prefer simpler code tools. ![]() When it comes to coding, I’m self-taught. After all, I don’t have a computer science degree my background, schooling, and first love is design. ![]() I never fully enjoyed Gulp as I always felt a bit out of my depth, but I did find it much easier to grok than Grunt for some reason. There are several of these tools around such as Gulp.js, which is what I used for a few years. Now, I may be getting the nomenclature wrong on these tools, but the idea behind each of them is to automate parts of the web development workflow. Think converting SASS into CSS, for example. One big change has been the introduction and adoption of compilers, preprocessors, and task runners – tools for converting source code to distribution or production code. □ These days… well, let’s just say there are a lot of different ways to build a website. You could say web development/coding has changed a lot over that time span. Sites were built on your computer and then you’d FTP everything to the production site. I barely touched JavaScript and jQuery didn’t come along until 2006.
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