Not that this invalidates what you said, but NPM and Grunt (and just enough Node.js to use them) are required learning for JavaScript developers nowadays IMO.
I didn't downvote you, but I use nodejs and I've never needed to use grunt.
I don't think grunt is as pervasive as npm in the world of node.js.
Maybe that's where the confusion was. I was talking about browser development. Thanks.
Grunt is just generally a helpful little task runner and good for automating many things in general web development - running tests, concatenation / minification, linting, HTML / CSS / JS preprocessing and so on, if that floats your boat. It really is worth giving it a go.
Well, makefiles have worked fine for me so far.
You might like Jake, then. It's a Node.js version of Rake (which is a ruby version of make).
Does whoever downvoted me care to explain why or offer another opinion?