Conferences I attended.
Yesterday I gave my first ever conference presentation in Dutch at the Pfcongrez, the annual conference of the PHP Freakz, the largest Dutch organisation for PHP programmers.
The presentation went well; I talked about the principles of unobtrusive JavaScript and it turned out that this concept was new to many attendees. I hope to have made a difference somewhere.
As I think I said before, I'll arrive in Austin only on Saturday afternoon. I've been very lazy this year and have made absolutely zero plans. However, I'd like to kick off my personal SxSW experience by having a relaxed beer in The Ginger Man from about 5 to at least 7 pm. I'm already supposed to meet some people there, but by this entry I'd like to extend the invitation to anyone who's interested (or who wants beer).
Hope to see you there.
Quite frankly, I haven't yet done very much this year. In the middle of last December I was overtaken by an acute case of severe stress (I posted a rambling entry at that time). Fortunately my planning called for a holiday at that point in time, but what I hadn't expected is that, even after three weeks of complete rest and no email, I still wouldn't be able to restart working.
As a result, I didn't do even 20 % of what I planned doing during January and February. Meanwhile I'm beyond apologising. Such things happen.
I may ignore the world, but the world still expects things of me. More precisely, it expects me to be present at no less than seven conferences between now and July. I hope that visiting these conferences will be what I need to get my act together again, especially since I have to speak at only three of them.
See my schedule for an (as yet un-microformatted) overview.
On 23 or 24 June I'm going to speak at An Event Apart Boston. If you're interested in meeting me in person, be there.
I'm going to talk about the principle of unobtrusive JavaScript (details forthcoming). This session likely won't be of huge interest to people already fluent in JavaScript, but it might help those who are considering the plunge into our beautiful language. I won't teach you how JavaScript works (one hour is far too short for that), but if you keep the principles I'll discuss in mind, you'll likely find the correct answers to many tricky questions by yourself.
I hope to meet a few of my readers there.
Well, @media Ajax has been an excellent conference. In fact, it was the best conference I've attended so far (OK, I haven't attended that many, but still). The main reasons for its excellence were the tight focus on one single subject, coupled to a stellar-class line-up of speakers (including humble me). I mean, at which other conference would we have had the opportunity to see Brendan Eich shoot screaming monkeys into the audience and Douglas Crockford admit that maybe (just maybe) JavaScript is slightly less misunderstood than it was a few years ago?
28 October 2007
Permalink | Conferences, Guild | 6 comments (closed)
Yesterday morning I returned from my first visit to San Francisco, where I delivered my first real solo presentation at the Voices that Matter: Web Design conference, as well as visiting Yahoo! and wandering around town a bit. All in all it was a wonderful experience.
Just now I finished my presentation at the Voices that Matter conference in San Francisco. At the request of New Riders and my audience, I've put the slides online (as a PDF).
Maybe this notice is a bit late, but next Tuesday I'll hop on board the plane that will take me to San Francisco for a ten day stay (Wed. 17th to Fri. 26th).
I've never been there before (in fact, this will be only the second time I visit the US), and I'm very curious about this great city where everybody's rumoured to talk about CSS all the time, which is supposed to be quite a bit like Amsterdam (at least, that's what a San Franciscan once told me), and whose praises have been sung many times over, even though the requirement to put flowers in your hair seems to have been scrapped somewhere during the Reagan administration.
The @media Ajax schedule has been unveiled, and my my, has Patrick managed to gather carloads of JavaScript excellence. Brendan Eich, Douglas Crockford, Derek Featherstone, John Resig, Stuart "I give everyone a weird middle name" Langridge, and last but not least Jeremy Keith for a bit of panel moderation. Early bird registration is still possible until the end of the month, so I advise you to purchase your tickets in the next few days.
21 August 2007
Permalink | Conferences, Society | 4 comments (closed)
Just as last year, I've got a session planned for SxSW 2008. Its title is "In Praise of Elitism", and of course I hope that my readers will vote for me so that I get free entrance to SxSW.
Well, another year, another @media. As usual I loved the conference, as well as meeting old friends and making new ones. I didn't drink quite as much beer as last year; I'm not yet sure why (and no, it's not because I'm getting old; I feel younger with every passing day and will pretty quickly re-enter adolescence). In any case, it was more than worth it and I'm looking forward to next year's edition (and, of course, to @media Ajax).
At the tail end of @media 2007 Europe, Patrick Griffiths announced a brand new conference at which I'm going to speak:
@media Ajax, 19 and 20 November 2007 in London.
As I think I said before, I'm becoming addicted to public speaking. Therefore I was very glad when New Riders/Peachpit invited me to speak at their Voices that Matter: Web Design Conference, 22-25th of October.
19 March 2007
Permalink | Conferences, Personal | 22 comments (closed)
There's one aspect of SxSW that I didn't discuss in my previous entry: the reason why I went to only a few parties. Most nights I was back in my hotel around 11:00. That's not really sociable, is it? Unfortunately I was unable to attend most parties BECAUSE OF THE FUCKING NOISE.
I'm wondering if it would be at all possible to just turn off the LOUD BACKGROUND MUSIC at conference parties.
Wow, what shall I say?
SxSW 2007 was awesome, but also just the tiniest bit intimidating. Why intimidating? Because it was so HUGE. I expected it to be larger than @media, but I didn't expect it to be nearly eight times as large, and the fact that it was has hampered my efficiency a bit. I haven't talked to nearly half the people I wanted to talk to (sorry, guys), because I kept saying "OK, I'll have to rush now; catch you later", but when later came around I couldn't catch them because they were at another party, or maybe at their hotel, or whatever.
Here you can leave comments about my presentation "JavaScript: The Big Divide" that I just finished.
See also the slides.
While visiting SxSW I'll also sign copies of the book for anyone who's interested. The signing session will take place on Saturday 10 March at 4:30 at the Adobe Day Stage Café.
While I'm there I'm also planning to pick up signed copies of Transcending CSS by Andy Clarke, Javascript and Ajax for the Web by Dori Smith and Tom Negrino, Bulletproof Ajax by Jeremy Keith, CSS Mastery by Andy Budd, and probably a few other interesting books.
I'll see some of you there.
As I posted before I'll be in Austin on Thursday, and I'll be looking for something to do. Meanwhile two get-togethers have been organised:
I hope to see some of my Austin-based readers there; and maybe a few others who, like me, have decided to arrive early for SxSW.
27 February 2007
Permalink | Conferences | 9 comments (closed)
In exactly a week I'll be flying to Austin for my first SxSW. My session JavaScript: the Big Picture will take place on Monday at 4:05pm in Ballroom F (whatever that may be; I assume a gentle SxSW employee will patiently explain where to find it). See this entry for details on my panel.
I'll be in Austin a few days before SxSW starts, and I'll leave a few days after it ends. Which brings me to my main point: will anyone be in Austin on Wednesday 7th and/or Thursday 8th and feel like meeting up? If you do, please leave a comment below. I'll be staying in the Driskill Hotel (not sure if that matters, but anyway).
3 February 2007
Permalink | Conferences, Personal | 2 comments (closed)
I suddenly realised I hadn't yet officially announced that my presentation "JavaScript: the Big Picture" has been accepted by SxSW. It will run on Monday 12th of March in the afternoon, and it will be a 25 minute power session. I already wrote about the topics I want to treat. Right now I plan to talk for a maximum of 10 minutes, after which a discussion is supposed to fill the remaining 15 minutes. My plans may change, though.
11 October 2006
Permalink | Conferences | 0 comments (closed)
SxSW's second round of panel picking is closing this Friday. If you want to give me free admission, please vote for my panel "JavaScript: The Big Picture" in the education/sociological and hacks/programming categories. An earlier entry already talked about the stuff I want to discuss during this panel.
Hope to see you at SxSW.
25 September 2006
Permalink | Conferences, Professionalism | 5 comments (closed)
Next March I'll be heading off to Austin to be at SxSW. Thrifty as always, I'm looking for ways and means of getting free admission, and the most obvious solution was to send in a panel proposal. Since this year SxSW allows people to vote for panels they'd like to see, you should vote for me if you'd like to hear me speak about JavaScript (and get me a free ticket). The panel is called "JavaScript: the Big Picture" and it's somewhere near the top of the list in SxSW's Panel Picker.
30 August 2006
Permalink | Conferences, Redesign | 8 comments (closed)
Although I'm almost ready with the promised redesign of QuirksMode.org, I'm nonetheless going to postpone it. There are two reasons:
23 June 2006
Permalink | Conferences, WaSP | 9 comments (closed)
The Hot Topics panel that closed the conference featured one excellent question that set me thinking about socio-political questions:
Isn't the recent mass movement of high-profile web designers to large companies like Yahoo and Google a little worrying in terms of objectivity and in terms of creativity?
You can read the discussion that followed in the transcript, but my own thoughts went in a slightly different direction.
The conference was split into two tracks, and there have been quite a few discussions about whether this was a good idea. I think it is because it allows for more specialisation. In any case, here are a few notes on some of the presentations I attended.
20 June 2006
Permalink | Coding techniques, Conferences, Theory | 9 comments (closed)
Well, I'm back from @media, and it was as wonderful as last year. I met lots of interesting people, talked about lots of geeky stuff, drank the amount of beer required by British law, and went on stage at a web conference for the first time—but I hope not for the last.
In a few hours I'll hop aboard the train to London in order to visit @media, where I'll be part of the Friday 10:30 JavaScript panel, as well as of the general setting of the conference. No doubt I'll meet some of my readers there; you can recognize me by the folded browser under my left arm.
As usual this site is closed down during my stay in London; anything that needs my personal intervention will have to wait until I return on Sunday, especially the five or six bug reports that came in during the past few days.
Meanwhile, if you have an itch to say something, help me find out more about Ajax Use Patterns, or suggest JavaScript fixes for IE 7. Comments on that last entry are under moderation by now, but I'll approve them as soon as I get back.
Please pull your agendas and make a note: @media 2006 will take place on 15 and 16 June in London. Be there.
Last Sunday the Amsterdam JavaScript meeting was a moderate success. Among others, Bobby van der Sluis, Anne van Kesteren and Faruk Ateş attended, and we had some interesting discussions.
16 June 2005
Permalink | Conferences, Nederlands | no comments allowed
Op zondag 26 juni vanaf 15:00 uur vindt er te Amsterdam een kleine JavaScript bijeenkomst plaats, georganiseerd door Bobby van der Sluis en mezelf.
Er is geen echt programma; we gaan gewoon wat met elkaar drinken, wat over JavaScript praten en we zien verder wel wat er uit komt.
Locatie: Café De Jaren, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 20-22, Amsterdam, vlakbij de Munt. Tram 4, 9, 16, 24 of 25 vanaf het Centraal Station, bij de Munt uitstappen, links de brug over de smalle straat in en dan kom je er vanzelf.
Ik hoop daar een paar van mijn Nederlandstalige lezers te treffen.
The JavaScript revolution started on Saturday 11 June at about 3pm (16:00 Central European time) in a fitting setting: a smoky London pub cellar that contained most of the UK's strategic beer reserve. If you weren't there, don't worry, you'll have plenty of chances to join us. In fact, we need you.
What we basically agreed on is that we need to get the word out. JavaScript is ready for its proper role in modern, standards based websites. During the conference we found plenty of evidence that there is much interest in JavaScript, if only people could get more help and more explanations.
Wow.
@media 2005 was far, far more interesting than I'd expected, and I had high hopes to begin with. I met a lot of interesting and nice people, I was pleasantly astonished by the number of people that know my work, and I found distinct, unmistakable evidence that JavaScript is emerging from the wilderness and is ready to play its proper role in modern, standards based web development, even though its relation to accessibility has to be re-thought from the ground up.
@media was more than great: it was necessary. Patrick Griffiths, thank you for making all this possible. See you next year.
Next Thursday and Friday I will attend the @media 2005 conference in London, where I hope to meet a few Web development luminaries like Jeffrey Zeldman, Joe Clark, Douglas Bowman, and many others, not to mention a few of my readers.
In addition, Dean Edwards, Jeremy Keith, Stuart Langridge, Simon Willison and myself will meet on Saturday 11 June for an informal JavaScript get-together, to which you, too, are invited.
There seems to have been a (badly covered) "Ajax Summit" organised by O'Reilly and Adaptive Path. Could be interesting. Scott Andrew has the details.
Just now I registered for the @media 2005 Web Standards & Accessibility conference held in London on 9 and 10 June. Maybe I'll meet some of my readers there.
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