TampereJS — a community for anyone interested in JavaScript
I’ve been hosting TampereJS meetups in Tampere for one and a half years now. We had the latest one in March at P47, the community space of Tribe Tampere, kindly sponsored by a company called Intopalo.
During the event Veera, a colleague of mine from Tribe Tampere, asked some good questions, and I’d like to share the answers to those with anyone interested.
What is TampereJS?
TampereJS is both a community of web developers in Tampere and a regular meetup around the topic of JavaScript — that’s the “JS” — and web development in general. The meetups are organized by a small group of volunteers, and every event has a sponsor that provides some food and drinks for the attendees. With over 400 members TampereJS is currently the biggest regular programming related meetup in Tampere.
The meetups have usually three talks from the sponsor and members of the community. The talk format is usually either educating others about a new interesting technology or showcasing a project that the speaker has done. There’s also some food and drinks and — most importantly — good company to discuss web development with.
Who is a typical attendee?
The typical attendee, I’d say, is someone who does web development for a living. Most likely has been doing for some years. We do have some students and less experienced coders attending as well, which is great for the diversity of the community.
Also there are some people who are not coders themselves, but that are otherwise interested in the topic, for example through working with coders. Some examples could be designers, project managers and entrepreneurs.
What is JavaScript?
JavaScript is a programming language. Other popular programming languages are, to name a few, Java, Python, C and Ruby.
Why is JavaScript relevant?
JavaScript is an increasingly popular programming language, according to some sources the most popular in the world. This is mostly due to its slightly exceptional history.
JavaScript was developed to be used in web browsers, originally for doing some very simple functionality on web sites. The functionality in the web browser, the “client” or “front end” as it’s called, kept getting more complex, and eventually this thing called Node.js was also developed.
Alright, we’re already in the technical terms, so let’s not go any deeper here. In a nutshell the development of Node.js made it possible to use JavaScript also on the server, the “back end”. And as JavaScript is the only programming language that can be run in the browser*, it suddenly also became the only language with which you could implement full systems (back end + front end = “full stack”).
There are a lot of opinions on whether JavaScript is the best tool for every situation, but the popularity and the huge ecosystem around the language mean that it’s relatively easy to find people to write JavaScript code, i.e. employees. Imagine knowing English — it’s not the best language in some specific situations, but it’s your best bet for being understood around the world.
JavaScript is currently a bit like the English language of web development.
Also, like it or not, a coder cannot really escape JavaScript in the modern world. Therefore it’s relevant for almost any coder.
Thanks for the lecture. Technology aside, what is the point of having these meetups?
Web development is a field where everything moves at incredible speed. The technology advances faster than you can read blog posts about how fast it advances. Meetups like this are a great opportunity to hear about new topics and discuss them with other bright people.
Also, it’s a lot of fun. The community is full of great people that are fun to spend quality time with, and what could be a better excuse than a meetup where you will also learn something useful?
Why are you involved in organizing TampereJS?
I joined the organizer group after the first event and have been involved since the fall of 2016. What motivates me to do voluntary work towards building a community is that I feel that different communities have given me more during my life and career than I could ever pay back.
This is especially true regarding coding. From the start it has been a community thing for me. Whatever I’ve wanted to learn, there is always free blog posts, tutorials, documentation or other resources to get me started. Not to mention open source software: for almost any problem there is a ready made piece of code (a “library” or “framework”, for example) that is free for anyone to use.
Also, in the beginning I saw organizing TampereJS meetups as a great way of getting to know the people and companies in the IT industry in Tampere, and that couldn’t have been more true. Now, a bit further in my career, I’d like to help the starting coders as much as possible.
Why organize TampereJS at Tribe Tampere’s P47?
Most of our meetups are at the sponsor company’s offices, but for some that is not possible due to the office’s size or some confidential projects being developed there. That’s where a venue like P47 comes in handy. This was the second TampereJS meetup hosted there.
Also, some mixing of different communities doesn’t hurt anyone. I love seeing Tribe Tampere people in TampereJS meetups, and TampereJS people in other Tribe events.
To find out more about TampereJS and join our events, you can find us on
- Our registration page
- Our closed Facebook group for hardcore fans
*Let’s not discuss WASM here.
