The way Alan‘s clear thinking, inquisitiveness, and transparency guided Magento 2 to release is respectable. Though he suggested I needn’t read the book — not a chance — I learned handfuls of tricks about M2’s frontend. If that’s where you work it’s worth your time.

Thanks for thinking of me Alan, and best of luck with volume three.

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Forward

Alan asked me to write this forward because I rode the tail of a comet named "responsive web design" and steered one of its meteors straight into Magento.

<p>When I received his draft I knew times had changed. You see this book is about Magento 2's frontend and Alan is Magento's chief architect.</p>

<p>Long before the Imagine conferences, I remember a time when naming a handful of Magento's core developers was a struggle. They surely existed, but my frequent challenges via Twitter revealed none to me but our community. For several years I felt quite alone in Magento by focusing on the frontend. Where were the practitioners? Who fenced for us in the platform? Surely somebody would step forward?</p>

<p>That meteorite took three years to arrive, but its crater sunk deep beyond the crust. The frontend came alive in our community and inside Magento — and that's around the time I met Alan.</p>

<p>Through Twitter, GitHub, conferences, Slack, and email ping-pong he listened and prodded the frontend chorus — which is exactly what I hoped for.</p>

<p>Alan admits to having no business advising frontend developers and designers on their craft and spares us the basics. Magento 2 is a different animal with similar spots. He approaches the familiar fauna of styling, templating, and scripting with caution to M2's disposition as only its architect can appreciate at this early stage.</p>

<p>Reading will take about three hours and his counsel is well met.  This is a critical companion to the M2 DevDocs that bares a few secrets. In fact I have some questions but thankfully know who to ask these days. Enjoy!</p>

<footer>Brendan Falkowski, Gravity Dept. (and Magento Community Luminary in Frontend Development)</footer>