I don’t want to us grunt right away. I am constantly learning and I have too many things to learn as it is. I don’t want to learn grunt right now. I’ve been using roots for some time now and I get this email that says, “For those of you that are still worried about using Grunt, I just published a screencast called How Roots Uses Grunt that’s available to download for $10” That sounds like I’m not going to be able to use future versions of roots if I don’t pay $8 so I can learn about grunt. Besides that, I’ll be surprised if it’s a good tutorial. Most people put together tutorials that can be understood by people who are already advanced in the technology. Those people probably don’t even need the darn tutorial. These videos always leave out key information that is needed by people who are unfamiliar with the technology.
So what’s going to happen is if I get the tutorial for $8 I’t going to assume I know something which I don’t know and I’ll end up spending 3 to 5 hours doing research on the internet to figure out what’s missing in the tutorial. So I’ll end up wondering what the heck I spent $8 for.
So what I want to know is this: If i don’t us grunt, then will I still be able to use the updated or newer versions of roots? Will it create a hastle or problem for me, or will I be able to use it with no problem?
No one is forcing you to learn or use Grunt. There’s still a Roots classic branch that will always exist although you’re correct that it might not be maintained in the future.
Grunt isn’t a requirement to use the latest version of Roots. You actually only need a tool to compile LESS. You could use Codekit, LESS.app, Prepos and I’m sure there’s more GUI apps that do this. app.css isn’t compiled and committed to our repo, so that’s the only file you need to compile to get Roots “working” completely.
If you’re concerned with the quality or usefulness of the screencast then we’ll be glad to refund your purchase no questions asked.
edit: To directly answer your 2nd post, yes you can still use the updated version of Roots (and at least in the near future since we have no idea what it will look like a year from now) as long as you use some tool to compile LESS files.
I can understand when you are new to web development, wanting to take small steps and learn one or a few things at a time. I will say though, that a CSS pre-processor is invaluable. Seriously. I don’t often work in straight CSS anymore, but when I do, it gets really tiring to have to work on any type of code that is even 2 or 3 ID’s/Classes/div’s deep. Just so much typing or copying/pasting.
Search on Youtube for a few videos on what CSS preprocessors do, and I hope you’ll agree that taking a few hours to learn how to use it is going to save you dozens if not more hours over the next year or two.
Like Scott mentioned, you can even use other tools to compile your SASS or LESS. I personally used Fire.app for the last year or so before switching to Grunt. It was only $15 I believe, and did a good job watching and compiling SASS. For LESS I’m sure there are other similar options.
Lot of good points here - I just want to make one. Don’t start learning CSS from pre-processor. Start by learning css - then use it. You are going to cripple your self later. What a lot of us discovered over time of doing web sites and applications is that there are a lot of repeatable tasks. This is the power of the less /sass pre-processor & grunt.
I only started learning grunt about 8 months ago and decided to spend a whole 2 days figuring out what I could do to optimize my flow. The end result is that 2 days of learning has killed about 20% of my project start up time, and day to day coding. If I improve my flow more and add in coffee script compiling I’ll get up to around 25% of my time back. So spend the time it’s worth it!
I want to learn grunt, but not right now. I know css and I know less, but not grunt yet. I’m gonna get the $10 grunt training video when I have time. I just don’t have time yet. I’m learning a lot of other stuff including git, vim, wp plugin dev, wp settinga api and etc… For now I would like to know which is the latest version that doesn’t require grunt or some other compiler. I know 6.3 works. 6.3 is one of the latest versions that doesn’t requrie the .htaccess plugin, but I’d also like to know which version doesn’t require a less compiler. If I’m not mistaken, compiling is reuire in order to use twitter bootstrap 3.0. Is that correct, or is there a Roots version that has TB 3.0 less already compiled? Also, is the only way to get older versions to download older commits from git? Or is there a webpage where I can click on a link to download an older version? If anyone can help I’d appreciate it.
Thanks.
I guess you didn’t read my comment all the way through. I use less. It’s grunt that I’m not ready to learn yet. But thanks for the info on 6.3, 6.4 and where the older versions are. That’s just what I needed to know.
I am like Dory from Finding Nemo and tend to forget things within 20 seconds. The last thing I remembered was you looking for a version that doesn’t require a less compiler so I thought I’d just introduce you to a few alternatives you can set up with the latest version of Roots.
Certainly, no appologies are necessary. I just felt compelled to mention that I think grunt and less are great to clarify my position. And to let you know that I really appreciated the version info you gave me. That was a great help.
Thanks
Just figured I’d chime in on the Roots/Grunt screencast. I paid the $10 and it was well worth it. Ben does a good job walking you through installing what you need and getting it working. Is it super in depth and cover every aspect of how Grunt works with Roots, no, but I’m glad it isn’t because I’d be lost and I don’t think that was the purpose of the screencast. It’s about 30 minutes long and by the end I had a grasp of what was going on, where to add my js scripts, working with the LESS files etc… I value my time, and $10 to be up and running and have a clue as to what was happening and why, is a steal.
