This is my little play script written in Node.js. I use it to fetch the latest changes from the version control system and build the project(s) I'm working on. Consider it a Makefile written in JavaScript. Probably not entirely necessary, but I find it useful and more fun to maintain than a shell script.

startdev.js

/*jshint node: true */
'use strict';
var exec = require('child_process').exec,
    fs = require('fs'),
    cwd = 'C:\\working\\directory',
    env = {
        'PATH': 'C:\\Windows\\System32\\;'
    },
    commands = {
        'command name': 'command-line --with-params'
    },
    current = 'command name';

function nextCommand() {
    var keys = Object.keys(commands),
        options = { name: current, cmd: commands[current] },
        nextIndex = keys.indexOf(current) + 1;

    if (nextIndex >= keys.length + 1 || nextIndex <= 0) {
        return null;
    }

    current = keys[nextIndex];

    return options;
}

function runCommand(options) {
    console.log('Running ' + options.name + '...');
    // uncomment to record the run time
    //console.time(options.name);

    exec(options.cmd, { env: env, cwd: cwd }, function (error, stdout, stderr) {
        if (stdout) {
            fs.appendFileSync('stdout.log', '\n\n===== ' + options.name + ' - ' + new Date() + ' ==========\n');
            fs.appendFileSync('stdout.log', stdout);
        }

        if (stderr) {
            fs.appendFileSync('stderr.log', '\n\n===== ' + options.name + ' - ' + new Date() + ' ==========\n');
            fs.appendFileSync('stderr.log', stderr);
        }

        if (error !== null) {
            console.error(options.name + ' completed with errors, check the log files.');
        }

    }).on('exit', function (code) {
        if (code === 0) {
            console.log(options.name + ' completed.');
        }
    }).on('close', function () {
        var nextOptions;

        // uncomment to record the run time
        //console.timeEnd(options.name);

        nextOptions = nextCommand();

        if (nextOptions) {
            runCommand(nextOptions);
        }
    });
}

fs.writeFileSync('stdout.log', '');
fs.writeFileSync('stderr.log', '');

runCommand(nextCommand());