gulp: gulp is sometimes slow to start

On my machine with lots of softwares (sketch, firefox as frontend dev, VMs, etc), I don’t have enough ram for gulp and its start is in this case really slow.

Once it was started, all is ok, the compilation is really fast and the next time I start gulp, it’ll be fast too.

Note : This issue is for the moment a memo, I’ll be back with more information. 😉

An indication of a compilation without troubles:

Thu 21 Aug 2014 12:08:33 CEST
[12:08:34] Using gulpfile ~/xxx/xxx/xxx/gulpfile.js
[12:08:34] Starting 'clean:dist'...
[12:08:34] Finished 'clean:dist' after 16 ms
[12:08:34] Starting 'clean:build'...
[12:08:34] Finished 'clean:build' after 252 μs
[12:08:34] Starting 'assets'...
[12:08:34] Starting 'images'...
[12:08:34] Starting 'svg'...
[12:08:34] Starting 'templates'...
[12:08:34] Finished 'assets' after 170 ms
[12:08:34] Finished 'templates' after 177 ms
[12:08:34] Starting 'scripts'...
[12:08:34] Finished 'svg' after 384 ms
[12:08:34] Starting 'styles:all'...
[12:08:38] Finished 'styles:all' after 3.92 s
[12:08:38] Finished 'scripts' after 4.15 s
[12:08:38] Finished 'images' after 4.43 s
[12:08:38] Starting 'compile'...
[12:08:38] Finished 'compile' after 9.18 μs
Thu 21 Aug 2014 12:08:38 CEST

---

Packages:

{
    "gulp": "3.8.6",
    "gulp-concat": "2.2.0",
    "gulp-consolidate": "0.1.2",
    "gulp-declare": "0.2.0",
    "gulp-define-module": "0.1.1",
    "gulp-filter": "0.5.0",
    "gulp-handlebars": "2.1.0",
    "gulp-iconfont": "0.1.0",
    "gulp-imagemin": "0.6.1",
    "gulp-jshint": "1.6.3",
    "gulp-livereload": "2.1.0",
    "gulp-minify-css": "0.3.5",
    "gulp-myth": "0.3.1",
    "gulp-plumber": "0.6.3",
    "gulp-rename": "1.2.0",
    "gulp-replace": "0.3.0",
    "gulp-rev": "0.4.2",
    "gulp-svg-symbols": "0.1.2",
    "gulp-svgmin": "0.4.6",
    "gulp-uglify": "0.3.1",
    "gulp-util": "2.2.17"
  }

---

gulpfile.js:

/**
 * Imports
 */
var gulp       = require('gulp')
var livereload = require('gulp-livereload')

/**
 * Helpers
 */
var path = __dirname + '/gulp/'

/**
 * Private tasks
 */
gulp.task('clean:dist', require(path + 'clean').dist)
gulp.task('clean:build', require(path + 'clean').build)
gulp.task('assets', require(path + 'assets'))
gulp.task('images', require(path + 'images'))
gulp.task('glyphicons', require(path + 'glyphicons'))
gulp.task('svg', require(path + 'svg'))
gulp.task('styles', require(path + 'styles'))
gulp.task('styles:all', ['svg'], require(path + 'styles'))
gulp.task('jshint', require(path + 'jshint'))
gulp.task('scripts', ['templates'], require(path + 'scripts'))
gulp.task('templates', require(path + 'templates'))


/**
 * Public tasks
 */
gulp.task('compile', ['clean:dist', 'clean:build', 'assets', 'images', 'styles:all', 'scripts'])
gulp.task('watch', ['compile'], function() {

  livereload.listen()

  gulp.watch('src/frontend/assets/**/*}', ['assets'])
  gulp.watch('src/frontend/images/**/*}', ['images'])
  gulp.watch('src/frontend/**/{*.js, *.hbs}', ['scripts'])
  gulp.watch('src/frontend/styles/**/*.css', ['styles'])
  gulp.watch(['web/assets/**/*', 'resources/views/**/*.tpl']).on('change', livereload.changed)

})

---

node : v0.10.31 macosx : 10.9.4

---

An example of task:

var gulp     = require('gulp')

var es       = require('event-stream')

var gutil    = require('gulp-util')
var imagemin = require('gulp-imagemin')
var svgmin   = require('gulp-svgmin')

module.exports = function() {

  var bitmap = gulp.src('src/frontend/images/**/{*.png,*.gif,*.jpg,*.jpeg}')
      .pipe( gutil.env.dist ? imagemin( { optimizationLevel: 5 } ) : gutil.noop()  )

  var vector = gulp.src('src/frontend/images/**/*.svg')
      .pipe( gutil.env.dist ? svgmin() : gutil.noop()  )

  return es.merge( bitmap, vector).pipe( gulp.dest('web/assets/images') )

}