Why From The Front is the best front-end conference in (for) Italy?
From the Front isn’t something you can grasp or explain in few words.
Formally, it is “just another front-end conf”, but there isn’t a definition so distant from what FTF really is, and what it gives to its attendees [spoiler: the venue is a theatre].
It’s a conference about coders life and because of that, main stages have been presented by people like Jeremy Keith @adactio, Ben Hammersley @benhammersley, Christian Heilmann @codepo8, PPK @ppk, etc.
People that are flying way above the day-to-day development; who are writers, readers, open-source contributors; people that can clearly see the current and future internet situation.
Keith’s motto “it doesn’t have to look the same on every browser” has been the mantra of the entire two days. His talk was about developing for the long term, without worrying much of the present; he didn’t show much code, but in my opinion pointing out the fact that Javascript can be a single point of failure in a code base, while pure HTML and CSS will never be, is way more important.
Or even highlighting that we should keep websites responsive and not make them responsive, is something to keep in mind at every time. He spent all his speech to rewire our lazy, rusty brains with bits of energy.
Heilmann’s talk described the Sankara stones of open web development as Structure (HTML), Presentation (CSS, Images) and Behaviour (JavaScript). He illustrated how these three guys worked together in the past, in the present and designed their future.
Then, he moved towards web openness in opposition to closed, proprietary, code; showing how important is the web “within the browsers”. Maybe this helped some people thinking that developing for iOS is not exactly the same thing as doing it for the web.
In a sort of continuum with Keith’s presentation, Heilmann showed how Microsoft’s first website works fine as it was designed in 1994. The problem here is, as quoted on @naoisegolden’s tweet: “Yes a web from 1998 still works now… but zero fucks are given. People want native Candy Crush and throw it away in a few months”.
And then, focusing on the open web, he briefly presented open solutions for those billions of people not really interested in a 700£ iPhone, like Firefox OS and Android One.
And his final 20 minutes were fireworks for developers, encouraging everyone in the theatre to code, to just code for the fun of it, to publish what they did on the web, and participate in every community around.
2014 has been the year of some brilliant — to not say deadly funny — guys like Jon Gold @jongold, mentioning Modernism everything and Bauhaus as an example of multi-disciplinarity that has to flow in every developer that does our job.
Oh, I’ve also learnt from him that when recruiters ask for full-stack web developers they are also looking for “unicorns” or “people who make internet”. Cheers Jon for all this gold (pun intended)!
I’m still unsure if the full-stack web developer way is the right one to follow; It seems to be the most fashionable now in these days of fast prototyping, but I still like people that excel on something.
But yeah, at the end I’m probably a unicorn as well.
Andre Jay Meissner @klick_ass, presented how to make our clients aware of the real need for testing, and also promoted Bologna’s open Open Device Lab. If you live there, and you want to test your website before putting it live, just head to OPS device lab. You can of course lend your devices as well!
If you don’t live in Bologna, just look for your Open Device Lab.
We were stunned in front of the smartest Nicolas Bevacqua @nzgb building everything and spreading knowledge on continuous development for the front end “Browserify all the things!”; Peter Gasston @stopsatgreen’s tips for proper and fail-proof web components; Sara Soueidan @SaraSoueidan, and her magics with CSS and SVG, pushing the boundaries of the standards; and (too) many other brilliant speakers.
I don’t really have to highlight how important was to have a funny muslim woman, good developer, in a conference in Italy, right?
And sorry, sorry to all the rest of the speakers, this post is getting very long and I’m not yet a freelance, so tomorrow I have to go to work. Happily, but still.
And I’m deeply sorry for my poor English to the man who really inspired me on writing this: a writer indeed, Owen Gregory @fullcreammilk, who talked about getting a deeper understanding of what us, as designers, UX, and developers, do everyday. Thanks for spreading the need of a wider community of good writers in these subjects. I renew this invitation to all my friends.
One of his slides was on this book: I have no idea what I will find out there, but it took me just one hour and a half to trust his advice. Hey Owen, I’m really looking forward to the transcript of your presentation!
Thanks to FTF organizers (*bearded below) for having such a strong impact on the mood of the event. I don’t know their guidelines for choosing speakers, but you have all my respect. Keep it up, as much as you can.
Everything was so nice that I don’t have a single point against it. They gave us the best breakfasts and lunches, leaflets, t-shirts, beers, everything to be really happy and stay together as a huge community!
And thanks to one of the most hilarious presenter ever (Indiana Jones above), the lovely Pierre Spring @shvi, who closed the conference with a short speech to encourage people to make what they really like and break the boundaries of their confort-zone to be happy for real.
Why staying if we’re not happy? Why not improving our skills a bit every single day? If you wake up every morning as a poor web developer like me, work takes the most part of your day, so there’s no point on not trying to make it better and have more fun.
It’s not about that work hard, play hard at all; it’s about our daily happiness, and spreading it.
Pro tip: on the official @fromthefront twitter stream you’ll find all the links to the available slides. Many other will be posted in the near future, and maybe some video coverage as well.
