The video from my talk at JSConf has been posted. Thanks to Chris for organizing the conference and the excellent quality of the video.
The description from the JSConf site summarizes the talk well:
John Resig presents his mystery topic, which is actually three topics that strike his interest. First up is measuring performance and a quick introduction to benchmarking (and its positives and negatives). This is followed by JavaScript Games which he unveils some super cool hidden functionality (cheat codes++) on the jQuery web site. This is followed up by the introduction of John's distributed continuous test framework platform, Test Swarm. It is jam packed with Nirvana and goodness so be sure to watch both parts.
This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the annual SXSW conference, down in Austin, TX. I participated in a panel discussion called 'More Secrets of JavaScript Libraries' (a follow-up panel to last year's talk). The synopsis was as follows:
In a reprise from last year's popular panel - the JavaScript libraries authors are getting together again to impart their what they've learned from their experience in developing solid, world-class, JavaScript libraries. Covering everything from advanced aspects of the JavaScript language, to handling cross-browser issues, all the way up to packaging and distribution. A complete set of knowledge for a JavaScript developer.
The talks went really well - we each gave a quick 10 minute presentation on a topic that interested us and finished up with some Q&A. The individual talks were as follows:
Getting Loaded (All about network performance and file loading) - by Nate Koechley of YUI.
Meta-Language Frameworks (Talking about the abstractions provided by frameworks) - by Andrew Dupont of Prototype.
Real World Accessibility (A quick examination of the upcoming ARIA specification) - by Becky Gibson of IBM and Dojo.
Performance and Testing (Looking at various performance analysis and testing techniques) - by John Resig of jQuery.
These past couple days have been a blast. jQuery Conference this past Sunday followed by 3 days of The Ajax Experience here in Boston.
I ended up giving 9 talks and was on 2 panels in 3 days - completely exhausting. We were able to get video of a bunch of the jQuery Conference so we should be posting it soon. It was great getting to see the whole jQuery team again. We talked a lot, did a lot of planning, and are ready to tackle the work in front of us.
Here are the presentations that I gave, if you're interested:
It's been a crazy couple days tracking all the feedback from the announcement (as the links below will surely attest to) but one thing is clear: People are really excited.
I was amused by the handful of posts from commenters, who obviously had never used jQuery, that were worried about Microsoft "embracing and extending" jQuery. Honestly, there is nothing that I would like better for that to happen. Considering that jQuery has a fantastic plugin architecture in place we fully expect Microsoft and Nokia to join the legion of other happy jQuery users who've constructed powerful jQuery plugins to suit their specific needs.
Considering that it's possible to extend jQuery core, events, animations, and selectors all with explicitly-defined and documented APIs it seems pretty safe to assume that we'll continue to make jQuery as extensible as possible - keeping our core tight, optimized, and designed with the developer in mind.
JavaScript 1.5 to 2.0 - A new talk examining all the language features introduced by the various versions of JavaScript (and the upcoming features of JavaScript 1.9 and 2.0).
I want to thank the above conferences and venues for inviting me to speak, it was a lot of fun. I want to thank everyone who attended my talks - it was great to be able to see everyone and get tons of excellent feedback. I'm definitely looking forward to my next batch of speaking.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
