CityJSConf talks to…Anton McConville
“Pure JS is maturing so much to include things like promises, classes, web components and more now, that much of the best value that frameworks surface is being absorbed. I love working with what is native.”
Anton McConville is an Ottawa-based digital designer and developer who has been giving talks at international software design and development conferences across the globe for the last 13 years. Formally trained in illustration at art school, as well as being a graduate engineer, McConville works on data-driven mobile apps — in both iOS and HTML. And JavaScript, of course.
Born and raised in a small town near Belfast, Ireland, McConville studied in Manchester, England before moving down to London to begin his career. Home is now Ottawa, Canada, and in his current job, he leads a digital creative team, producing case study apps and projects on IBM’s cloud platform and the services it offers — for sharing with corporate clients, analysts and the tech community.
His talks tend to involve cutting-edge CSS intertwined with data-inspired back ends - often involving music - and the CityJSConf talk later this month is no different. Using JavaScript to harvest Natural Language Processing (NLP) data, McConville will explain how best to use JavaScript and Canvas within the emerging CSS Houdini Paint API, whilst visualising the psychology of song lyrics. We’re looking forward to seeing exactly how a songwriter’s personality changes over time!
How are you adapting to the current coronavirus pandemic?
Working from home. Checking in a lot. Surviving. Adapting. I manage a team, so it has been an interesting era to manage a team in too. I’ve been observing a lot about how my neighbourhood is adapting. How local stores and cafes are changing. What is essential, how inventive people are to grow. Personally I’ve been drawing and painting more with watercolour, running more, doubling down on DuoLingo, and trying to be grateful for health, home, family.
Tell us about your daily life where you are. We are all spread across the globe. What is it like being you where you are?
I live in Ottawa, the national capital of Canada. I think it is a hidden gem. I live downtown in the ‘ByWard Market’ — the original market area of the city. It is built on a river, on the border between Ontario and Quebec, so has a mix of English, French and home grown architecture. And languages. The city and country are slowly ( maybe too slowly ) respecting the First Nations more … and the city has a lot of commissioned First Nations street art, that I can see from my window, and love. My city has a canal built largely by Irish immigrants ( I am an Irish immigrant ) — and has a lot of Irish influence in street names and landmarks, which helps root me more. I run along the river every day, past the houses of parliament, the national gallery, a gorgeous cathedral, the national war museum and history museum. Across the river is a forest — great for hiking, trail runs, chilling. In the wintertime the canal becomes the world’s longest skating rink. It is a lot to be grateful for. It is a peaceful city, with great food, vibrant streets in the market at nighttime. Happy to be here right now :)
Which hobby has been keeping you sane during coronavirus? And what is your non-pandemic hobby?
Discovering watercolour painting, and urban sketching is new. Writing poems. My go-to escape is playing my guitar and singing.
What are you missing most during this pandemic?
Traveling. Was due to travel to London and Amsterdam when the pandemic struck.
What did you want to be when you were young?
Probably a poet :)
Any particular mantras that you live your life by?
1] Starting a thing is half the work. 2] Try to let go, and love without fear.
What was your first experience speaking at a conference? How was it? Any embarrassing stories?
JavaOne 2007. Was awesome, so well produced. In my talk I used an ‘ages of man’ evolution visual metaphor to explain how I saw something technical evolving. At the end of the talk, one of the attendees met me at the podium, and was pretty angry about the evolution slide. They were a Creationist, and objected strongly. I’d never met a Creationist before, and felt pretty bad about offending anyone. It was a lesson to care more about audience diversity as much as possible. Check my own assumptions. Absolutely everything you do and say on stage is subject to interpretation :)
What made you begin (and what keeps you) speaking at conferences?
It helps me discover and share what excites me.
How does your company (or you as a freelance) use JavaScript?
I use it a lot … for creating sites, and solving problems.
JavaScript turns 25 years old this year! What has taken it from a bit of syntactic sugar sprinkled on HTML to its present and rather mighty form?
Raw minimalism :)
Why did you choose the frameworks that you use?
I try to avoid JS frameworks as much as possible these days. I’ve lived through a lot — they come and go. Pure JS is maturing so much to include things like promises, classes, web components and more now, that much of the best value that frameworks surface is being absorbed. I love working with what is native.
What and when was your first JavaScript project (professionally or personal)?
My first personal website in 1997.
Favourite JavaScript library or framework — why?
Vanilla JavaScript — and starting to dig Web Components.
What’s the best way to learn JavaScript?
Design a site and jump in.
What is the future of JavaScript?
Web Components, and Houdini :)
