Java has maven or ivy for extracting dependent jars from various public repositories.
Ruby has even better dependency search tools: a gem and a bundle.
Is there any equivalent tool in the Javascript community? I found several tools for managing dynamic dependency loading in a browser. I am NOT looking for these tools.
In particular, I'm looking for a tool that a new developer uses to extract the javascript files they need. The developer runs this tool and:
- It is viewing a project dependency description file.
- Detects that the project needs jquery-ui-1.8.7, tiny_mce-3.4.3.2 and prettyLoader-1.0.1
- Extracts jquery-ui-1.8.7.min.js, prettyLoader-1.0.1.js, tiny_mce-3.4.3.2 from the Internet.
- Installs .js and .css in a local repository
- Understands that jquery-ui relies on jquery-1.6.1 and downloads / installs jquery
- Determines that tiny_mce needs a jquery plugin, and downloads and installs it.
After that, the developer has a local copy of all the necessary js / css files.
If a new tiny_mce or jquery appears, the project file is updated and the developers simply return the tool and get all the new files.
If no version of the js library is specified, the latest version is retrieved.
What I just described is what maven / ivy / gem does in java / ruby space.
Obviously, I could fine-tune something for my own needs using maven, but does the javascript community have something in place?
Update:
npm was mentioned by Raynos. Npm centers around node.js (which is ok). However, the public repository has limited published libraries and limited metadata (version, author, project URL is missing from simple discovery).
However, it seems that npm is the solution today. Unfortunately, for us it will not be quite enough, but this is life.
I am really very surprised that there is no project management tool in jquery or google-catch. (Tell me if I'm wrong!)
Update: now meteor has appeared along with a meteorite to access and update the atmosphere libraries. A lot of awesomeness.