Client-side JavaScript frameworks are increasingly popular, and even necessary, for modern Web applications. But how can you decide from among them? What are the differences between the leading frameworks, and how do they approach the same task? In this talk, Craig McKeachie describes and discusses several popular frameworks, including Ember.js and Angular.js.
Ember.js is a leading client-side framework — letting you create rich, desktop-style applications that run within the browser, and which communicate easily with a server. In this talk, Yehuda Katz describes what the Ember.js developers have aimed to do, and their process for doing so. How have they released new versions without breaking previous code? How have they tried to learn from other frameworks? This talk shows how Ember.js has tried to do all of these, and more, as they build a solid framework that is growing in popularity.
Another talk in the “Wat” style, in which we point to weirdness in a programming language, this talk (given by Brian Leroux) points to the many strange corners in JavaScript. Whether you use JavaScript and want to understand the language better, or don’t use JavaScript and want to justify that decision by making fun of the language, this (slightly older) talk will certainly provide you with some food for thought.
What do you need to know in order to be a Web developer? A great Web developer? In this talk, Kathy Sierra argues that the most important skill is being able to learn and assimilate new things quickly. New languages, new browsers, new paradigms, new considerations — you’ll always, for your entire career, need to learn new things. How can and should you learn quickly and well? And what does it mean to learn, or to become an expert?
Two different technologies have growing mindshare when it comes to high-performance Web applications: node.js and the Go language. How do these compare, in terms of development, community, and performance? What happens when a company decides to move from node.js to Go? Is it a clear win? If not, what are the trade-offs? In this talk, Kelsey Falter describes the decision-making process that she and her company went through in making such a transition. She provides an interesting comparison between node.js and Golang, and how a company might decide between the two.
Unicode makes it possible for programmers to work easily (or at least, more easily) with multiple character sets within a single program. Not all developers know how to work with Unicode, and not all developers realize that JavaScript natively supports Unicode. Moreover, not everyone realizes what it means for JavaScript to natively support Unicode. This talk, by front-end developer Mathias Bynens, describes the Uniocde support, but also some of the surprises that JavaScript has for people expecting to use this support.
It’s not enough for a successful application to work, or even to execute quickly. If an application will succeed, then it needs to be designed well, with a good user interface. For years, creating good user experiences (UX) for Web apps was possible, but often frustrating. In this talk, front-end developer Lauren Tan describes how she was able to use the Ember.js front-end framework to develop, iterate, and improve an interface — and make it as obvious and easy as possible for people to understand and use.
JavaScript has had, by any standard, a wild ride since it was first invented. No one expected it to be as successful, or as ubiquitous, as it is. In this talk, Dave Herman discusses the evolution of JavaScript, from the language’s humble beginnings to its high-speed, just-in-time compiled present, to the way in which it is moving toward the future. How can a language, used by hundreds of millions of people every day, change without breaking everything? What does the design process look like?
The move toward modern JavaScript continues, with ES6 coming in the near future, with a huge number of new features that make it into a more useful, flexible, and expressive language. In this talk, Jafar Husain describes not only some of these new features, but also the reasons why they have been added — and the ways in which we might want to use them. If you’re unfamiliar with such things as generator functions in ES6, then this talk will help you explain the excitement.
Sails.js is a server-side Web framework that sits on top of Node.js. It is thus built in JavaScript, allowing you to use the same event-oriented architecture in the browser and on your server. In this talk, Mike Hostetler introduces it to Web developers, demonstrating its power and scalability, its MVC structure, and the Waterline ORM. If you want to work in JavaScript on the server, but find Node.js to be too low level, then this talk can introduce you to Sails.js.