use browserify for build

[mobidev111]

browserify makes bundling the multiple modules much easier.

build task example:
https://github.com/vigetlabs/gulp-starter/blob/master/gulpfile.js/config.js
https://github.com/vigetlabs/gulp-starter/blob/33e33e763060e7052ee7b3da430a8dfdca050a4e/gulp/tasks/browserify.js

[jtomaszewski]

What would be the advantage of such solution?
Do we gain anything that we don't have in the current build process?

[mobidev111]

browserify handles dependency management of your modules very well - I can add/remove a module simply by add/removing the corresponding require() - and during the build process this change is taken into account directly.

"This means that the bundle you generate is completely self-contained and has everything your application needs to work with a pretty negligible overhead."
https://github.com/substack/browserify-handbook#how-browserify-works

From your build process files I see that all js files in the app directory (whether needed or not) are concatenated during the build process

-> using browserify helps you to only add the referenced modules & thus automatically the resulting build artifact matches these modules

[jtomaszewski]

Yeah, but in Ionic apps propably:

• you will load all the .js files from ./app/ directory anyway (if not, why would you have them there?)
• all the files are available offline, so there's no delay or overload while loading them

I would still like to know what is a direct advantage of this solution. What do we gain that we don't have right now? Any real-world usage example?