Front-End Web Development: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

For the More Curious: npm and Bower Install

The options --save-dev and --save at the end of the commands npm install and bower install add key/value pairs of library names and versions to a JSON for each tool. In the case of Bower, the JSON is bower.json; for npm – as you saw in Chattrbox – it is package.json.

For example, in bower.json the key/value pairs added in this chapter were:

{
  "name": "tracker",
  "dependencies": {
    "ember": "~2.4.3",
  }
}

The file bower.json lists the dependency ember.js with its minimum version number. The libraries and assets listed will not be saved to your development project repository or version control system, only the bower.json file. A developer who checks out the code can run bower install and ...