Presentation Abstract: Application development on the web has drastically evolved over the last 15 years. Today web applications are often expected to act like natives apps, are JavaScript heavy, and need to work across mobile, tablet and desktop. With the rise in these application expectations comes the rise in developer skill set expectations, and when ever developers need to do more you can expect some tooling to come into the mix.

This talk will talk a brief look at the history of application development on the web and where it seems to be going in the future. From there we will then take a look at 4 tools (npm, bower, grunt, yeoman) that focus on front end development needs of todays modern web apps.

Presenter Bio: Zan Thrash is a Principal Consultant with Object Partners, Inc and has been developing software in the Twin Cities area for over a decade. Zan has spent the last 4 years advocating and implementing Grails solutions for multiple clients across various industries, including Health Care, Higher Education, and Social Networking. Zan is an active member of the Groovy/Grails community speaking at the Groovy Users of Minnesota, Object Technology User Group of Minnesota, and GR8 Conf Us.