Blog
April 16th, 2008
My summer/fall speaking schedule is starting to solidify - with some major intensity occurring around May. Let me know if you're going to be at, or around, any of these events - I'd love to meet up.
May 17-18 - BarCamp - Boston
Don't have an exact topic chosen yet, possibly something on jQuery.
May 20 - MeshU Conference - Toronto
I'll be speaking on building interactive prototype using jQuery. More details...
May 23-24 - DrupalCamp - Toronto
The exact topic isn't clear yet, but probably something having to do with jQuery and Drupal.
May 27 - Kings of Code - Netherlands
I'll be speaking on the features of modern JavaScript libraries. More details...
May 29-30 - @Media - London
I'll be speaking on the features of modern JavaScript libraries. More details...
June 5 - Boston PHP - Boston
I'll be speaking on developing applications using jQuery. More details...
June 12 - Refresh Boston - Boston
I'll be speaking on using jQuery to develop interactive prototypes.
July 22 - OSCON - Portland
I'll be doing a 3.5 hour tutorial session on the Secrets of JavaScript Libraries (covering much of the content which will be presented in my upcoming book). More details...
October - Ajax Experience - Boston
I'll be giving three sessions: two on jQuery (beginning and advanced) and one on modern JavaScript libraries.
Tags: javascript, jquery, presentations, conferences
12 Comments on 'Summer Speaking'
February 22nd, 2008
It's that time of year again - the annual South by Southwest conference is nearly upon us! This year I submitted two panel topics and had one accepted: Secrets of JavaScript Libraries.
Secrets of JavaScript Libraries
This is going to be a stand-out panel, I can feel it in my bones:
This talk will delve into the secret techniques used by JavaScript library authors to create comprehensive libraries that work seamlessly across browser environments. We'll look at everything from fixes for strange browser quirks, tricks for gaining speed, to tips for writing smooth animations. This panel will be held by experienced JavaScript Library developers who have, cumulatively, many decades of JavaScript development experience under their belts. Everything discussed will be backed up with publicly available, rock-solid, code.
And check out who will be joining me on the panel:
- Sam Stephenson (Creator of Prototype)
- Alex Russell (Co-Creator of Dojo)
- Thomas Fuchs (Creator of Scriptaculous)
- Andrew Dupont (Contributor to Prototype)
This is going to be an advanced panel, tons of code, deep-and-dirty into the code and why we do what we do. So be sure to check us out - we're going to be competing against the keynote talk on the final day: Room 9 - Tuesday, March 11th 2 to 3:00pm.
Browser Wars: Deja Vu All Over Again?
One of the top panels from last year, back again. Three of the major browser vendors will be up and discussing various aspects of browser development, standards, and all sorts of interesting topics. Be sure to stop by to get your dose browser craziness in: Room 10 Monday, March 10th, 2 to 3:00pm.
On the panel:
- Chris Wilson (Platform Architect, Microsoft)
- Brendan Eich (CTO, Mozilla)
- Charles McCathieNevile (Chief of Standards, Opera)
Birds of a Mozilla Feather
There's also going to be a Birds of a Feather, held by Mozilla, on Monday, March 10th from 3:30 to 5:30pm (soon after the Browser Wars panel) at the Moonshine Bar and Grill. This is going to be a ton of fun, it'll be a good time for chatting and talking about the future of Firefox and the web. You can expect to see the following people there:
- Brendan Eich (Creator of JavaScript)
- Christopher Beard (Head of Mozilla Labs)
- Aza Raskin (Mozilla Labs)
If you wanna catch up with me, be sure to do it before Tuesday as my flight is right after the panel. I'll be spending plenty of time checking out the various parties, panels, etc. so you're bound to see me around.
If you're not already doing so you should follow me on Twitter as that'll probably be the best source of determining where I am (and for pinging me if you want to meet up).
I'm so looking forward to being in Austin. Boston is expecting 3-5in of snow tonight. Sunny, warm, Texas can't come soon enough.
Tags: javascript, browsers, sxsw, conferences
13 Comments on 'JavaScript and Browsers at SXSW'
November 9th, 2007
During the past two weeks I've given three presentations on Tamarin and ECMAScript 4. I've gotten a ton of great feedback, criticism, and commentary - all of which has been very helpful.
» Tamarin and ECMAScript 4
Here's a quick re-cap of how the talks went:
There were some very smart questions asked by the audience here - and some pressing concerns. Although, the theme of "being concerned" was a large one throughout the conference (this was right about the time of the white paper release and ensuing blog kerfuffle). That being said, of those that attended my talks, I was able to help alleviate most of their initial doubts (such as towards backwards compatibility, the new type system, or the complexity of the language). It was pretty easy to spot conference attendees who did not attend my talk as those questions were raised again during the ensuing panel discussions. I generally found that those who were at the talk were able to get up to speed pretty quickly; understanding most of the changes and being excited about when they could start to test them.
This was a really unique speaking situation for me - talking to a large room of ActionScript developers about the future of their language. I only have a cursory knowledge of ActionScript so I was able to gloss over some of the details of ES4 (since they already have type annotations, classes, and packages). That being said, I got some really fantastic questions. Considering that these developers have already been using a large subset of ECMAScript 4 for close to 1.5 years it was great to hear the sort of concerns that they had.
Overwhelmingly, of the developers and Adobe employees that I talked to, everyone seems to love the new changes that were introduced in ActionScript 3 - and they're all looking forward to the ECMAScript 4-based updates. It's interesting to see where the ActionScript community has gone, as it's a good indicator of where the JavaScript community will lead once JavaScript 2 is out the door.
This talk was the most fun, out of the three. I was primarily presenting to members of Shibuya.JS (the only JavaScript user group in the world) and they were very excited and asked lots of good, hard, questions. Probably their biggest concern was over the "expressiveness" of the language and if that would be maintained into the next version.
Members of Shibuya.JS streamed the talk that I gave to them over ustream - you can find recorded copies below:
» The Future of JavaScript (Video)
» The Future of JavaScript - Lightning Talks and Q&A (Video)
After the talks a number of us went out for dinner and it was great fun. We talked JavaScript, jQuery, and ECMAScript for many hours - frequently just writing code on paper to talk to each other (JavaScript being the universal language).
I hope I can make it back to Tokyo soon (Gen has a longer recap of my trip up) and be able to visit Shibuya.JS as well.
Seeing them in action has given me a serious itch to start up a Boston.JS group.
Tags: javascript, conferences, travel, tokyo, ecmascript, mozilla
15 Comments on 'ECMAScript 4 Speaking Tour'
August 20th, 2007
It's that time of year again - voting for the 2008 SXSW Interactive panels has opened up. This year I played it smart and actually got my panel submissions in on time. I've got two new talks planned, so if you're interested in seeing me present (or are interested in reading the slides, and hearing the audio, if you can't make it) please feel free to vote up my two talks:
This talk will delve into the secret techniques used by JavaScript library authors to create comprehensive libraries that work seamlessly across browser environments. We'll look at fixes for strange browser quirks, tricks for gaining speed, and tips for writing smooth animations. Everything discussed will be backed up with publicly available, rock-solid, code.
This will be a panel and I'm hoping to bring along some other devs from Prototype and Dojo (depending on who's planning on attending).
This talk is going to take you through the new JavaScript features that browsers are introducing and show you how you can begin using them in your applications, today. We'll look at how you can use the new features of JavaScript 2 to create robust, deployable, code -- and even how to bring JavaScript out of the browser and onto the server.
Also, be sure to check out the many Mozilla talks that are being proposed.
Looking through the presentation list it seems as if people didn't really learn anything from last year's conference. You have to remember that this is 7 months away at this point. That's like, what, 3 Internet years?
So to all 11 of you who proposed iPhone-related talks - don't be surprised if your talk isn't nearly as interesting come March of next year.
Tags: mozilla, javascript, sxsw, conferences
10 Comments on 'SXSW 2008 Voting'
March 5th, 2007
This Friday I'll be flying down to Austin to attend SXSW. I'm really excited to be going, it looks like its going to be a lot of fun. There's going to be a ton of people that I know, there, and I'm looking forward to meeting them.
I won't be presenting this time around, I'm looking forward to just soaking in the area and talking with people. You'll most likely be able to find me at the Mozilla booth (in case, my cell # is 585-615-5287) and making at least one stop to the Apress booth. (I hear they'll have a bunch of my books on hand - let me know if you want one signed, ha!)
Side Events
Three events that I'm looking forward to (in addition to the main conference) are:
BarCamp Austin: I'll confess, I love BarCamps. Ever since attending the first BarCamp NYC, during January of last year, I've gone to all the camps that I've been able to make. This one is no exception. (I'm also looking forward to going to BarCamp Boston 2 later this month.)
Avalonstar Bowling: I'm part of Team JavaScript Ninjas, which includes: Andrew Dupont (Prototype Core), Aaron Gustafson (Co-Author of Web Design in a Nutshell, Speaker, A List Apart), and Dan Webb (Prototype Core, author of UJS for Rails). And no, we're not better at bowling than we are at JavaScript.
Breakfast with Dustin: Dustin Diaz is having a late night breakfast for all of those who've opted to fly out on the 14th (as opposed to taking a red-eye).
Games + Work = ?
One thing that you might notice from my itinerary: I'm currently planning on attending very few JavaScript-centric or Entrepreneurship-centric talks. I could say that I'm burnt out, but in reality I'm just much more interested in the number of game-centric talks. For example, these all sound very interesting to me:
I love the topic of integration of games and reality. Mixing user interfaces and games, work with games; treating real-life like a game. It fascinates me, I can't get enough. It definitely looks like SXSW will satiate that desire.
I'm sure I'll talk about it more at some point, but there's a fundamental core buried inside gaming. Work becomes enjoyable, interfaces and input become simple - I'm very interested in how those concepts can be extracted and applied to real-life applications and user interfaces.
Rough Itinerary
Note: If you're reading this in a feed reader, then you'll probably see no agenda below this line - please visit the blog post to view the full thing.
So yeah, if you're going to be at SXSW, let me know - I'd love to talk with you!
Update: I just signed up for Conferenceer, you can look at my full schedule (and connect with me) on my profile there.
Tags: games, conferences, mozilla, sxsw, sxsw2007
2 Comments on 'SXSW'
June 7th, 2005
Just a heads up to those going to the 2005 HCI International Conference - a poster of mine is going to be presented there (by Tristan O'Tierney) concerning the work that I did on my recent Independent Study with Jon Schull. The title of the poster/project is called Two Way Web. It's a very slick framework for easily deploying and creating modifyable web pages with no programming required. We're probably going to be launching it here soon (open source, Python, AJAX), so I'll be sure to let everyone know when that happens.
Tags: ajax, conferences, posters, python
Comment on 'Two Way Web Poster'
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