Web Directions Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

A presentation given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 8, 2007.

• Session description
• About George Oates
• About Paul Hammon

Session description

Web apps are an intimate marriage of back-end systems and client-side interaction, but it takes two very different skill sets to build robust scalable application platforms and create smooth user interfaces that work in multiple browsers.

In this session, George Oates and Paul Hammond consider the development process from the perspective of both back- and front-end developers, and the cooperation required between them. They’ll discuss how simple architecture choices, development patterns and — above all — good communication are key to making the relationship work.

About Paul Hammond

Paul Hammond is a web developer, product manager and father. He has been building websites for as long as he can remember, and is now part of the Yahoo! Technology Development group. Before that he led technical project management at BBC Radio and Music interactive.

Paul regularly speaks on subjects from javascript and APIs to the future of broadcasting, at events including Emerging Technology, d.Construct and xtech. He is currently living somewhere between London and San Francisco, and keeps a technical weblog at paulhammond.org.

About George Oates

George Oates joined a company called Ludicorp back in the middle of 2003, having moved from Australia, where she had enjoyed a successful career in the web industry. At the time, Ludicorp was making a hilarious online game called Game Neverending and George jumped in, helping design game elements, the GNE universe, and how players interacted.

It wasn’t long before Ludicorp shifted gears somewhat and decided to enter the photo-sharing space. We were all torn between wanting to keep doing fun game things and the need for money. So, we managed to find a way to blend the two, and Flickr was born!