Gulp wasn't dead in 2017, but its role was shrinking. It shifted from being the primary build system to a utility for specific tasks that Webpack struggled with. We saw a massive migration from gulpfile.js to purely webpack.config.js .
While not a "build tool" in the traditional sense of bundling code, became an essential part of the 2017 build pipeline. It is an opinionated code formatter that removes all original styling and ensures that all outputted code conforms to a consistent style. Integrating Prettier into a build-on-save or a pre-commit hook has revolutionized how teams collaborate, ending "tabs vs. spaces" debates once and for all. 6. The Move Toward Yarn build tools 2017
# Find MSBuild "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe" -version Gulp wasn't dead in 2017, but its role was shrinking
By 2017, Webpack had become the standard. With the release of Webpack 3 in June, we saw features like "Scope Hoisting" which promised smaller bundle sizes. However, the learning curve was steep. We spent hours tweaking loaders for Sass, Babel, and images. While not a "build tool" in the traditional
Rollup provides the cleanest, smallest output.
The biggest shift? The rise of "Opinionated Defaults." Tools like Create React App and Vue CLI showed us that maybe we didn't need to configure everything ourselves. It set the stage for the Vite and esbuild revolutions we see today.