Grunt, Sass, Mustache: My Go-To Toolkit in 2015

These tools might seem dated now, but they still serve me brilliantly.

Front-end tooling moves quickly, which is a polite way of saying we regularly replace perfectly good tools because a new one has a nicer logo. Grunt, Sass and Mustache are not glamorous, but together they give me a dependable way to build sites without making the build process the main event.

The useful question behind “Grunt, Sass, Mustache: My Go-To Toolkit in 2015” is what changes in the work afterwards. A sound idea should improve a real decision, not only give us a neat phrase for describing it.

I have learned to be suspicious of advice that only works in a tidy example. Real projects come with history, deadlines, uneven confidence and requirements that move while you are looking at them.

Front-end work has a habit of looking simple from a distance. The browser then introduces real content, small screens, old devices, keyboard navigation and somebody using the product in a way nobody drew in the design file.

I do not always manage it perfectly. The aim is to make the better choice easier to recognise the next time it appears.