Jazz up your JavaScript: New Ideas for the New Year
Passionate about JavaScript? You’re not alone! Each year members of the international JavaScript community unite across conferences, meetups, and hackathons to develop and swap JS ideas and war stories.
Here we’ve gathered 10 popular recordings from Skills Matter’s own FullStack conference, each centered around some aspect of JavaScript development, to help bring your ideas forward into 2019.
1.) JavaScript: The Next Generation (with JS mastermind, Brendan Eich)
JavaScript is over 23 years old — and still kicking!
Brendan’s keynote from FullStackCon 2018 reviews the history of JS (including why the language is the way it is) and shines a light on what’s coming next in the top four JS engines directly from Ecma TC39, the body acting as steward of the language.
✨ Brendan’s talk starts at 12:35 minutes in ✨
2.) How JavaScript Works: A Preview (with JSON big dog, Douglas Crockford)
JavaScript isn’t just the goofy language that the web is stuck with! JavaScript s the vehicle of transition into the next paradigm of programming. In a 2018 keynote, Douglas delves into why JavaScript matters and just how it works.
3.) Choosing a Framework (with open source tech innovator, Dylan Schiemann)
Probably the most common question asked as you get to know an organisation is:
“What framework should I use?”
No matter what some people would have you believe, there is no straightforward answer. To make the right choice, you need to explore the seemingly simple question:
“What are you trying to do?”
Dylan’s organisation has over 18 years of JS experience and has witnessed the rise and fall of frameworks, the coming and going of trends, the ebb and flow of browser dominance, and was there when JavaScript was once just an obscure simplistic scripting language. He’s now kind enough to share some of what was learned along the way and lend a hand to choosing a framework.
4.) Two React Fans Sent To Angular Battlegrounds and What They Learnt (with FullStack friends, and Theodo developers, Loïc Carbonne and Jérémy Dardour)
Is the day-to-day life of React developers, forced by fate to work with Angular, really that bad?
Examine the ups and downs with Loïc and Jérémy, and discover the answer to that difficult question:
Which framework (if any) should I choose for my next frontend application?
5.) Micro Frontends — A Microservice Approach To The Modern Web (with nearForm senior software engineer, and scalable JS app enthusiast, Ivan Jovanovic)
It’s not always easy to migrate to a new technology. Yet there are not many developers that still want to work with Angular 1 or Backbone, so moving to something on is becoming necessary.
Uncover the story of Micro Frontends — a microservice approach to the modern web and the story that will change the way you look and develop your apps!
6.) How To Use Small Projects To Learn (Anything) — with frontend engineer and alum of the New York Recurse Center, Christine Cha)
Building small projects can be the most fun and most efficient way to learn just about anything. But where do you start?
In this talk, Christine shows you how to maximize your time, how to come up with project ideas, how to avoid getting frustrated, and how to create work that you’re proud of.
7.) Lightning Talk: Improving User Experience With Web Workers (with SitePen software engineer, James Milner)
Web browsers use single-threaded JavaScript to perform tasks (business logic, layout, reflows and garbage collection.) This means complex heavy JavaScript functions can block the main thread from rendering — leading to low frame rates and low interactivity for things such as scrolling and input. Ultimately providing a poor user experience.
James puts his history of building immersive web applications within the startup and geospatial sectors to practice as he explores the idea of using Web Workers for increased performant and smooth web applications. All in lightning talk time!
8.) Building a Platform: Webpack and the Future (with the maintainer of Webpack, Sean Larkin)
Revisit Sean’s surprise FullStackCon 2018 closing keynote and uncover the latest and upcoming Webpack happenings.
9.) MobX State Tree With React.js (with Front-End Reactive Architectures author, Luca Mezzalira)
MobX State Tree can be understood via simplicity. Luca shows how easy structuring a Reactive application with this state management system can be as he shares some of the key concepts of Reactive Programming with MobX (particularly how it works in combination with React.js)
10.) Progressive Web Apps: Beyond The Buzzword (with FullStack and web enthusiast, James Maciver)
Get ready to level up your existing web apps, create new offline-first web apps, and … Eventually… Wave goodbye to native.
James shows how to build a ‘Progressive Web App’ whilst uncovering the building blocks required to truly compete with native (building blocks such as a Service Worker for creating and consuming content offline; Web Push to maintain user engagement via notifications for hot new content; Cache API to ensure your app responds quickly and reliably; and more!)
💥Are you a JS developer? If you are in London in July, check out FullStack London, or head to New York in May for the first ever FullStackNYC conference. 👍 For news and articles from Skills Matter, subscribe to our newsletter here.
