Mission Briefing

In this project we'll set up the environment we need in order to use jQuery's build tool. We'll see what other software we need to use, how to run the build tool itself, and what we can expect as output of the build tool.

Why Is It Awesome?

While it's fairly common for someone to say that they use jQuery in every site they build (this is usually the case for me), I would expect it much rarer for someone to say that they use the exact same jQuery methods in every project, or that they use a very large selection of the available methods and functionality that it offers.

The need to reduce file size as aggressively as possible to cater for the mobile space, and the rise of micro-frameworks such as Zepto for example, which delivers a lot of jQuery functionality at a much-reduced size, have pushed jQuery to provide a way of slimming down.

As of jQuery 1.8, we can now use the official jQuery build tool to build our own custom version of the library, allowing us to minimize the size...