Chapter 1, Getting Started, gives a brief introduction to Grunt.js for readers. It will introduce the basic concepts required to understand how Grunt.js works and why automated integration is important. The project in this chapter will set up users with all the tools required for the upcoming projects from this point forward. It covers the installation of software dependencies including Git, Bower, and Grunt.js.

Chapter 2, Developing a Blog with Jade and Sass, will look into Jade, a templating engine originally developed for the Node.js platform. It will involve developing a blog as a use case, using templates for individual posts and the blog as a whole. The project will also emphasize the importance of compression, minification, and obfuscation in developing a high-traffic blog as a use case.

Chapter 3, Making an Employee Management System, will look into CoffeeScript, a language that compiles to JavaScript. It will involve developing an employee management system as a use case, demonstrating CoffeeScript's easy-to-use classes and coding practices.

Chapter 4, Final Project – Simple Bulletin Board System, will be the largest project in the book. It will involve creating a simple BBS website, also known as a message board or forum, using all the concepts involved in this book. We will illustrate the importance of using test-driven development via Mocha throughout this chapter.

Chapter 5, Best Practices for Modern Web Applications, will cover the best practices that are used today for frontend development. It will cover, search engine optimization, form validation, user experience/interface design, and responsive design.

In order to complete the projects within this book, you will need to have the following available beforehand. A tutorial on how to install and configure the various software dependencies may be found in Chapter 1, Getting Started.

This book is designed for professional developers and sysadmins who would like an in-depth learning approach to Grunt.js to ensure that their projects are optimally configured. Hobbyist developers are also encouraged to go through the chapters to broaden their horizons on various web tools. Lastly, managers and entrepreneurs may be interested in an overview of Grunt.js and its importance when the tool has been chosen for a particular project.

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "Open the index.html file in the src folder in a web browser of your choice."

A block of code is set as follows:

// constants and functions

module.exports = function (grunt) {
  grunt.initConfig({
     // configuration
  });

  // user-defined tasks
}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

# npm install -g bower

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Fill out the necessary fields on the homepage and click on the Sign Up for GitHub button."

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To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <[email protected]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.

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