Smells like JavaScript Community spirit

JavaScript. That handsome dynamic, weakly typed, multi-paradigm, prototype-based devil 😍

Though JS appeared on our screens over twenty years ago, fresh developments, innovations, methods and tools continue to enhance its use (and our products). To celebrate this constant evolution — and in honour of FullStackCon, FullStack NYC and our constant stream of JS-dedicated meet ups — we’ve rounded up our current most popular JavaScript SkillsCasts, free for your viewing pleasure!

From how to go about testing in React to code caching and future-proofing your code, we hope you’ll learn something new from the following:

1.) Demystifying Micro-Frontends (with Luca Mezzalira)
Recorded 23rd September, 2019

Microservices provide a way to break up a monolithic architecture into multiple atomic units, allowing for the independent scalability of a service. They also provide a better way to divide domains across multiple teams.

Luca Mezzalira (VP of Architecture at DAZN and Google Developer Expert) explains how to apply the same principles to frontend applications, enabling you to scale up a project with tens of developers without reducing the throughput 🤯

2.) How Do You Go About Testing in React? (with Lisa Gagarina)
Recorded 11th March, 2019

Find frontend testing a challenge? Curious as to how the JPMorgan team overcame app test teething issues? Feeling like your own tests aren’t giving you the greatest confidence in shipping your application to end users? Worrying about test coverage?

Lisa Gagarina (who believes JavaScript and its community provides numerous tools for amazing software) explores, and demos, some of the different types of tests React developers can use — along with their purpose, stories from the JPMorgan trenches and the future improvements her team envisions. No one wants to ship a broken experience to their precious users and now you don’t have to!

3.) Code Caching for JS Developers (with Leszek Swirski)
Recorded 20th September, 2019

Everyone knows that the fastest way to do something is to not do it at all, and V8 (Google’s high-performance open-source JS engine) is no exception. After all, why parse and compile JavaScript that we’ve already parsed and compiled before? 🤷‍♂️

But the caching behaviour of a JavaScript engine can be a bit of a mystery. What even gets cached, and why? Who decides when it’s cached, where it’s stored — and how many caches even are there? Plus what if I use a service worker???

Here, Leszek Swirski (Software Engineer at Google working on Android camera performance and V8) demystifies code caching in V8 by describing how it interacts with the disk, how in-memory code is re-used, how compiled scripts are serialized and — most importantly — how developers can benefit from these optimizations.

4.) The New React (with Ken Wheeler)
Recorded 30th January, 2019

Da real JS MVP, Ken Wheeler, explores some of the new and exciting GAME CHANGING features coming to React (like hooks and suspense).

The world of app writing is about to get rocked 🔥😎🔥

“When you think about it, as programmers, we are writers. We can literally write words and it makes machines move. We’re basically wizards.” — Ken Wheeler on Programming

5.) How to Make Loveliness: an HTML Treasure Hunt (with Bruce Lawson)
Recorded 24th June, 2019

You’re a PHP ninja. You’re a React god. You’re a magician with Sketch... But if your code is assembling HTML to get delivered to a users’ browser, how much do you know about HTML’s semantics? 🤔

The end users’ experience can be greatly enhanced by choosing the correct HTML elements with no extra fragile code to write and maintain.

Bruce Lawson (one of the co-editors of the HTML5.3 spec) will take you on a magical treasure hunt around HTML, showing you marvelous gifts and hidden wonders that will also help future-proof your code and turn you into a time-travelling Frontend Superhero, adored by millions!*

*Actual number not guaranteed. But your users will be happy.

We hope you enjoy these SkillsCasts. Learn anything interesting from them? We’d love to hear about it in the comments!

All of the above were recorded at our free London-based JavaScript Matters meetups. Featuring keynotes from top JS experts, these monthly evening events allow attendees to network with the community in a casual, relaxed setting before sharpening up the skills to ensure their code shines compared to the rest! Click here to sign-up and explore the latest sessions.

Or…

Want to learn from the foremost experts in JavaScript, NodeJS and IoT fields whilst mingling with the international community for two — or even three — days? Then be a part of FullStack London ☕️ or FullStack NYC 2020 🦅!

For a taste of what to expect, just check out Ken in action at last year’s FullStack LDN:

Hot stuff.