Web Directions

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Dmitry Baranovskiy Enters the Dragon with JavaScript. See below for full session description and more resources.

Got a taste for it? Be there for the dev track at Web Directions South 2012.

This presentation was recorded at Web Directions Code in Melbourne on May 24 2012.

Session description

Some time ago now JavaScript stopped being a toy language and became a serious player. Yet when you browse through the plethora of code and different discussions you get the sense that a lot of people, even those who use it every day, are still quite confused about the language — its great power, and your great responsibility toward it as a developer. Demystifying this is the purpose of the entire second day of Web Directions Code, which Dmitry will introduce in a keynote you won’t forget for a long time.

Resources from this presentation

• Baby steps: The JavaScript Garden
• As the man says, read the bloody spec!
• A number of the other presentations on the JavaScript day of Web Directions Code went into detail of the kind of thing Dmitry speaks about here:
  • Write JavaScript like it’s 2012 — Tony Milne
  • Truthiness, falsiness and other JavaScript gotchas — Anette Bergo
  • Getting closure in JavaScript — Mark Dalgleish

About Dmitry Baranovskiy

Dmitry started his journey over a decade ago as a backend developer, then a designer and has now finally settled and accepted his fate as a frontend developer. Despite his deep knowledge of CSS and HTML, he mainly specializes in JavaScript and is well known as the creator of Raphaël as well as other JavaScript libraries.

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Some time ago now JavaScript stopped being a toy language and became a serious player. Yet when you browse through the plethora of code and different discussions you get the sense that a lot of people, even those who use it every day, are still quite confused about the language — its great power, and your great responsibility toward it as a developer. Demystifying this is the purpose of the entire second day of Web Directions Code, which Dmitry will introduce in a keynote you won’t forget for a long time.

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Anson Parker gives us the lowdown on this excellent HTML5 feature. See below for full session description and more resources.

Got a taste for it? Be there for the dev track at Web Directions South 2012.

This presentation was recorded at Web Directions Code in Melbourne on May 23 2012.

Session description

Get the low-down on this excellent HTML5 feature and learn how you can add it to your own web projects (and why you'd want to!). We'll also look at some of the missteps made along the way (like the 2011/12 Twitter web interface).

Resources referred to in this presentation

• HTML5 History API tutorial
• Twitter engineer Dan Webb on their choice to use #! URLs
• A History API library that supports older browsers (with #‘s — so beware!)

About Anson Parker

Anson Parker is a web developer based in Melbourne, Australia. His past has included stints at Optus and News Limited in Sydney, as well as a couple of years with a tech startup in San Francisco. Over that time he has moved from design to programming to product development. He is the man behind the domain name search engine Domize and plans on launch­ing an automotive search engine in 2012.

" ["post_title"]=> string(36) "The HTML5 History API - Anson Parker" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(387) "

Get the low-down on this excellent HTML5 feature and learn how you can add it to your own web projects (and why you'd want to!). We'll also look at some of the missteps made along the way (like the 2011/12 Twitter web interface).

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Anette Bergo takes a look at the pitfalls of JavaScript. See below for full session description and more resources.

Got a taste for it? Be there for the dev track at Web Directions South 2012. Oh, and, the man who wrote "JavaScript, the Good Parts", Douglas Crockford, is also giving a full day masterclass.

This presentation was recorded at Web Directions Code in Melbourne on May 24 2012.

Session description

Douglas Crockford has introduced us all to the good parts of JavaScript. But what then are “the bad parts”? In this session, Anette Bergo takes a look at some of JavaScript’s odd parts, quirks, and pitfalls.

Resources referred to in this presentation

• the book that started it all, Douglas Crockford's "JavaScript, The Good Parts"
• video of Douglas speaking on "JavaScript, The Good Parts"

About Anette Bergo

Anette Bergo works for ThoughtWorks where she runs around and tries to fix things and occasionally gets to write some code. She has had a bizarre love for JavaScript since her first web site crashed the browser with an endless loop, and decided to start the Melbourne JavaScript group in 2010 to find people that felt the same.

" ["post_title"]=> string(65) "Truthiness, falsiness and other JavaScript gotchas - Anette Bergo" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(370) "

Douglas Crockford has introduced us all to the good parts of JavaScript. But what then are “the bad parts”? In this session, Anette Bergo takes a look at some of JavaScript’s odd parts, quirks, and pitfalls.

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Tony Milne on some JavaScript best practices. See below for full session description and more resources.

Got a taste for it? Be there for the dev track at Web Directions South 2012.

This presentation was recorded at Web Directions Code in Melbourne on May 24 2012.

Session description

This 15 minute party may or may not include: when and how to load and run JavaScript on page load; JavaScript coding conventions you should adopt; a look at writing callback oriented JavaScript and some JavaScript performance tips for fun and profit.

Resources referred to in this presentation

• Summary of Script tags, CommonJS and AMD
• Comparison of RequireJS v YepNope v LABjs
• Module Patterns in JavaScript
• An in-depth summary of Modules in JavaScript
• RequireJS
• Almond, the light weight shim (alternative to RequireJS in production)
• The CommonJS specification
• The AMD specification
• Author of RequireJS on AMD

About Tony Milne

Tony is a co-founder of Inlight Media, a leading Melbourne web and mobile development company who specialise in Node.js backed iOS/web projects. When Tony fills in his census survey answers, JavaScript is his native language. Tony helps organise and regularly attends MelbJS (a Melbourne JavaScript group) and the Melbourne Node.js meetup, so you can come along, hang out and drink a beer with him there.

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This 15 minute party may or may not include: when and how to load and run JavaScript on page load; JavaScript coding conventions you should adopt; a look at writing callback oriented JavaScript and some JavaScript performance tips for fun and profit.

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Jared Wyles shows us how to improve JavaScript performance by listening to our browser. See below for full session description.

Got a taste for it? Be there for the dev track at Web Directions South 2012.

This presentation was recorded at Web Directions Code in Melbourne on May 24 2012.

Session description

Before we fork out for expensive performance monitoring tools, what if we took the time to listen to what our browser was trying to tell us? We can discover a whole range of features you may have ignored. Discover how to debug network latency issues, memory leaks and other performance fun in our browsers. With web applications becoming more like desktop apps, remaining open for days at a time. Now is the time to listen to your browsers pain and walk away with a new toolkit of performance best practices.

About Jared Wyles

Jared is a senior software engineer having recently taken over reigns of the frontend at big commerce. He has done a stint with Atlassian and digital agencies working with the web for the past 5 years. When not working, he can usually be found drinking somewhere ranting about the current state of web applications or web standards to whoever will listen, and in front of whatever conference will have his rants on the importance of performance.

" ["post_title"]=> string(48) "Removing the gag from your browser - Jared Wyles" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(663) "

Before we fork out for expensive performance monitoring tools, what if we took the time to listen to what our browser was trying to tell us? We can discover a whole range of features you may have ignored. Discover how to debug network latency issues, memory leaks and other performance fun in our browsers. With web applications becoming more like desktop apps, remaining open for days at a time. Now is the time to listen to your browsers pain and walk away with a new toolkit of performance best practices.

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Tammy Butow has a look at the new HTML5 form features. See below for full session description and more resources.

Got a taste for it? Be there for the dev track at Web Directions South 2012.

This presentation was recorded at Web Directions Code in Melbourne on May 23 2012.

Session description

Let’s have a look at how new features such as autofocus, required fields, native date pickers, place­holder text and popping up tailored keyboards for numbers and email addresses on mobile devices can make life more enjoyable!

Resources referred to in this presentation

• Slides from this presentation
• W3C listing of differences between HTML5 and HTML4
• Dive Into HTML5 on Forms
• HTML5 inputs and attribute support
• H5F JavaScript library that allows you to use the HTML5 Forms chapters new field input types, attributes and constraint validation API in non-supporting browsers
• Modernizr
• Initializr
• HTML5 Boilerplate

About Tammy Butow

Tammy is studying a Master of Computer Science at RMIT and is the co-chair of @GGDMelb. She also spends her time making HTML5 mobile apps, travelling, blogging and filming music videos for chuckingamosh.com.

" ["post_title"]=> string(44) "Fantastic forms for mobile web - Tammy Butow" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(384) "

Let’s have a look at how new features such as autofocus, required fields, native date pickers, place­holder text and popping up tailored keyboards for numbers and email addresses on mobile devices can make life more enjoyable!

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Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 14th.

• Audio recording of session
• Presentation slides
• Session description
• About Nicole Sullivan

Presentation slides

Session description

Let’s admit it, the tools for writing CSS aren’t very advanced. For the most part, the people who write tools don’t know about CSS and the people who know about CSS don’t write tools. Quite a conundrum! In this session, you’ll learn about good tools that can make development faster and maintenance easier. We’ll also talk a bit about where we can go from here. What tools do we need as sites are becoming more and more complex? We need to get beyond tools whose primary goal is to avoid hand-coding and realize that, as our techniques for writing CSS become more powerful, our tools can too! Session will include:

• Validators
• Preprocessors
• Finding dead rules
• Linting
• CSS3 gradient tools
• Performance measurement tools
• Unit testing

About Nicole Sullivan

Nicole is an evangelist, front-end performance consultant, CSS Ninja, and author. She started the Object-Oriented CSS open source project, which answers the question: how do you scale CSS for millions of visitors or thousands of pages? She also consulted with Facebook and the W3C, and is the co-creator of Smush.it, an image optimization service in the cloud. She is passionate about CSS, web standards, and scalable front-end architecture for large commercial websites.She co-authored Even Faster Websites and blogs at stubbornella.org.Follow Nicole on Twitter: @stubbornella" ["post_title"]=> string(33) "Nicole Sullivan - CSS Power Tools" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(267) "

In this session, you’ll learn about good tools that can make CSS development faster and maintenance easier.

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Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 13th.

• Audio recording of session
• Presentation slides
• Session description
• About Peter Mika

Presentation slides

Session description

The key idea of the Semantic Web is to make information on the Web easily consumable by machines. As machines start to understand web pages as sources of data that can be easily combined with other public data on the Web, the promise is that search on the Web will move well beyond the current paradigm of retrieving pages by keywords. Instead, search engines will start to answer complex queries based on the cumulative knowledge of the Web.In this presentation, we overview the basic set of technologies that can be used to annotate web pages so that they can be processed by data-aware search engines. In particular, we discuss the RDFa and microdata standards of the W3C designed for marking up data in HTML pages. We look at the ways in which this information is currently used by search engines, including the latest schema.org collaboration between Bing, Google, and Yahoo!, which provides a basic set of vocabulary items understood by all three major search engines on the Web.

About Peter Mika

Peter Mika is a researcher and data architect at Yahoo! Research in Barcelona, working on the applications of semantic technology to Web search. He received his BS in computer science from Eotvos Lorand University and his MSc and PhD in computer science (summa cum laude) from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His interdisciplinary work in social networks and the Semantic Web earned him a Best Paper Award at the 2005 International Semantic Web Conference and a First Prize at the 2004 Semantic Web Challenge. From 2006 to 2009, he has been a co-chair of the Semantic Web Challenge. Mika is the youngest member elected to the editorial board of the Journal of Web Semantics. He is the author of the book ‘Social Networks and the Semantic Web’ (Springer, 2007). In 2008 he has been selected as one of “AI’s Ten to Watch” by the editorial board of the IEEE Intelligent Systems journal. Peter is a regular speaker at conferences.Follow Peter on Twitter: @pmika" ["post_title"]=> string(38) "Peter Mika - Making the Web searchable" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(315) "

In this presentation, we overview the basic set of technologies that can be used to annotate web pages so that they can be processed by data-aware search engines.

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Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 14th.

• Audio recording of session
• Presentation slides
• Session description
• About Tom Hughes-Croucher

Presentation slides

Session description

Learn how to build high performance Internet and web applications with Node.js. In is session Tom Hughes-Croucher will demonstrate how to quickly build a high performance chat server using Node.js. This live coding exercise will provide a real insight into what it looks like to build a project in server-side Javascript. We will also cover how to deploy Node applications in production and look at just how far Node can really scale… A million connections and beyond?

About Tom Hughes-Croucher

Tom Hughes-Croucher is the Chief Evangelist at Joyent, sponsors of the Node.js project. Tom mostly spends his days helping companies build really exciting projects with Node and seeing just how far it will scale. Tom is also the author of the O’Reilly book “Up and running with Node.js”. Tom has worked for many well known organizations including Yahoo, NASA and Tesco.Follow Tom on Twitter: @sh1mmer" ["post_title"]=> string(49) "Tom Hughes-Croucher - Up and Running with Node.js" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(252) "

Learn how to build high performance Internet and web applications with Node.js.

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Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 13th.

• Audio recording of session
• Presentation slides
• Session description
• About Michael Honey
• About Tim Riley

Presentation slides

Session description

Computers are increasingly being held in the hand rather than sitting atop lap or desk. We now have to consider how our products will work underneath a finger instead of a mouse cursor. Increasingly, too, those products are being delivered as native applications, capable of fully exploiting device capabilities. That has ramifications not only for the way those projects get built, but also how we structure the businesses that support them.In this session, Michael Honey and Tim Riley answer the question “web or native?” from business, product design and development perspectives. They cover the current state of web technology on modern devices and compare it to what’s available through native development platforms. They’ll look at web, native and hybrid strategies successfully employed by Australian and international businesses, and share their own stories as mobile and web developers. Finally, they’ll offer practical guidance on picking a strategy for web or native development that best suits your needs — as either a developer or a client.Tim and Michael are two of the partners behind Icelab, an Australian design and development studio. They’ve trod both the web and native paths through their client work, such as interactive touchscreens for museum exhibits, online photo galleries and mobile tour guides, and also their own projects, like Decaf Sucks, a coffee review community available on the web (optimised for both desktops and smartphones) and as a native iPhone app.

About Michael Honey

Michael founded Icelab after a career as creative director and later, interactive director in an agency environment. He has fifteen years’ experience in design for screen, print, video and exhibition spaces, and has expertise in writing, programming, direction and post-production. He is an experienced coder, with a particular interest in algorithmic animation and datavisualisation. He is also experienced in the development of diagrammatic animations for cultural, engineering, scientific and architectural clients.Michael’s interests include architecture, urbanism, and the environment.Follow Michael on Twitter: @michaelhoney

About Tim Riley

Tim is a partner at Australian design and development studio Icelab, where he builds excellent web and mobile applications using Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, Cocoa, and occasionally out of popsicle sticks. On alternate days he runs Decaf Sucks, an online community for coffee reviews, and RentMonkey, which contains the greatest

on the Internet.Tim is an active participant in the Australian web and iOS communities, as a regular speaker at the Sydney Ruby on Rails meetings, organiser of the Canberra Ruby Crew, and part of the Canberra Cocoaheads chapter. Tim loves coffee and hates gluten.Follow Tim on Twitter: " ["post_title"]=> string(76) "Michael Honey & Tim Riley - Web or native? Smart choices for smartphone apps" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(446) "

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Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 13th.

• Audio recording of session
• Session description
• Full length tutorial (external site)
• About Julio Cesar Ody

Session description

Learn how to build great looking and high performance mobile web applications leveraging CSS3 animations and Backbone.js, along with some cool use cases for geolocation and localStorage.This session will describe in length a boilerplate you can use for developing your own apps aimed at A grade mobile devices and tablets.

About Julio Cesar Ody

Julio has been a full-stack software developer for the 12 years of his career, and during this time he went from being a GNU/Linux and Unix sysadmin, to a VoIP PBX architect, and finally a software developer.Since moving to Australia from Brazil, he has worked on startups and companies building software and at the same time, stuck his nose as much as he can into the human side of the software equation, understanding developer productivity, how software companies work, and product development.More recently he grew too interested in design for his own good, and began freelancing under the codename of Awesome By Design, writing a bunch of software which he open sourced on GitHub, giving presentations using his own presentation framework, and building software that not only does the job, but does so in style.Follow Julio on Twitter: @julio_ody" ["post_title"]=> string(61) "Julio Cesar Ody - CSS3 and Backbone.js for killer mobile apps" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(294) "

This session will describe in length a boilerplate you can use for developing your own apps aimed at A grade mobile devices and tablets.

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Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 14th.

• Presentation slides
• Session description
• About Ben Birch

Presentation slides

Session description

If this year is all about the mobile space maturing, then your web skills are where it’s at and a key player is PhoneGap, which supercharges your code and gets you into the app store(s).We look at one small framework’s journey from birth at a 2 day hacking event to become the preeminent method for distributing packaged web apps on mobile devices. We will have a look at the all the goodies that PhoneGap provides, then peek inside and see how it integrates with the web stack. We will explore some of the pain points and work arounds. Then, we take a quick pass through the community and resources available. Finally, we finishing up with a look at where PhoneGap is going and explore the interesting places your web dev skills could take you in the next 12 months.

About Ben Birch

Ben is Senior UI Engineer and Beer Baron at Aconex in Melbourne. About 5 years ago a revelation turned him from back end programming to concentrate full time on client side development. At Aconex he brought the rigours of testing to javascript and css well before it was easy and along the way built a lightweight UI framework. The same framework now drives jQuery Mobile using pure javascript.By day he builds enterprise tablet apps on PhoneGap and by night he contributes to several open source projects and changes nappies. He is slightly over excited by all the awesome technology and rapid pace of change in the web space and it’s open and collaborative buzz.Ben has a wife, two small kids and hangs out at #melbjs and on GitHub.Follow Ben on Twitter: @mobz" ["post_title"]=> string(45) "Ben Birch - HTML5, PhoneGap and What’s Next" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(338) "

If this year is all about the mobile space maturing, then your web skills are where it’s at and a key player is PhoneGap, which supercharges your code and gets you into the app store(s).

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Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 14th.

• Audio recording of session
• Presentation slides
• Additional resources
• Session description
• About Greg Rewis

Presentation slides

Session description

Since the early days of the web, the only reliable way to get movement on your site was through Flash, or more recently, Javascript. But now, with WebKit and Mozilla leading the way, transformations and transitions can be done with pure CSS, even on mobile devices. And for those in need of even more movement, CSS3 provides for keyframe-based animations. In this session, we’ll take a look at all of the possibilities and explore what works and where — from the simplest effects, to creative usability enhancements including the combination of CSS with mobile Javascript frameworks.

About Greg Rewis

Greg Rewis is the Principal Evangelist for Adobe Systems, focusing on Adobe’s open web products and technologies such as HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript. With over 20 years of computer industry experience, Greg spends in excess of 200 days of the year on the road, talking with customers, giving product demonstrations at seminars, and speaking at industry conferences.Greg has been passionate about the web since putting his first “home page” online in 1994. His career has taken him around the world, from the early days of desktop publishing, to a start-up in Hamburg, Germany, the glory days of the web at Macromedia and finally his current role at Adobe.The original GoLive Cyberstudio Product Manager and former Dreamweaver Technical Product Manager, Greg is the co-author of “Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS3″ and “Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4″ published by New Riders, as well as a regular contributor to industry publications.Follow Greg on Twitter: @garazi" ["post_title"]=> string(53) "Greg Rewis - Move it! CSS3 Transitions and Animations" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(386) "

In this session, we’ll take a look at all of the possibilities and explore what works and where — from the simplest effects, to creative usability enhancements including the combination of CSS with mobile Javascript frameworks.

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Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 14th.

• Audio recording of session
• Presentation slides
• Session description
• About Damon Oehlman

Presentation slides

External slides.

Session description

Most jaw-dropping apps use multiple HTML5 APIs in creative ways, rather than a single API in isolation. In this session we will explore ways you can implement and combine HTML APIs such as websockets, web workers, local storage, and geolocation to make awesome web apps. Then just for fun we’ll look at how you can dish up something really special by throwing in ingredients like canvas, video and WebGL.

About Damon Oehlman

Damon Oehlman is an experienced web and mobile applications developer. He has worked with small and large companies to develop software solutions for desktop, web and most recently mobile devices. His first technical book, Pro Android Web Apps, was released earlier this year by Apress. Damon currently runs his own software development and consulting firm Sidelab, which specializes in cross-platform mobile solutions. Damon’s aptly titled tech blog Distractable offers a mix of articles, tutorials and other shiny things. He is a proud dad, husband and one day dreams of owning his own underground lair.Follow Damon on Twitter: @damonoehlman" ["post_title"]=> string(30) "Damon Oehlman - HTML5 API Soup" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(347) "

In this session we will explore ways you can implement and combine HTML APIs such as websockets, web workers, local storage, and geolocation to make awesome web apps.

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Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 13th.

• Audio recording of session
• Presentation slides
• Session description
• About Ryan Seddon

Presentation slides

Session description

More and more as front-end developers we are presented with new challenges, with the explosion of the mobile web it has created a whole new territory. How do we test the vast array of devices out there? And what tools can help us make this a painless experience?Testing web apps on mobile devices is a new challenge not yet fully explored. Let’s brush over the beginnings of web application testing and debugging and dive into current solutions for remote debugging. In this session we’ll cover what developers and browser vendors are doing to help tackle this problem, including some of the tools available to use today, and how some of these tools work internally and what the future may hold.

About Ryan Seddon

Ryan Seddon is a Senior Front-end Developer from Melbourne Australia who has an unnatural obsession with JavaScript and the many places it runs. He also loves to tinker with any new web technology he can get his hands on and loves diving into specs and code to figure out more.In his spare time he’s either playing basketball, writing for his blog thecssninja.com or committing code to github.Follow Ryan on Twitter: @ryanseddon" ["post_title"]=> string(40) "Ryan Seddon - Remote debugging landscape" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(267) "

How do we test the vast array of devices out there? And what tools can help us make this a painless experience?

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Dmitry Baranovskiy Enters the Dragon with JavaScript. See below for full session description and more resources.

Got a taste for it? Be there for the dev track at Web Directions South 2012.

This presentation was recorded at Web Directions Code in Melbourne on May 24 2012.

Session description

Some time ago now JavaScript stopped being a toy language and became a serious player. Yet when you browse through the plethora of code and different discussions you get the sense that a lot of people, even those who use it every day, are still quite confused about the language — its great power, and your great responsibility toward it as a developer. Demystifying this is the purpose of the entire second day of Web Directions Code, which Dmitry will introduce in a keynote you won’t forget for a long time.

Resources from this presentation

• Baby steps: The JavaScript Garden
• As the man says, read the bloody spec!
• A number of the other presentations on the JavaScript day of Web Directions Code went into detail of the kind of thing Dmitry speaks about here:
  • Write JavaScript like it’s 2012 — Tony Milne
  • Truthiness, falsiness and other JavaScript gotchas — Anette Bergo
  • Getting closure in JavaScript — Mark Dalgleish

About Dmitry Baranovskiy

Dmitry started his journey over a decade ago as a backend developer, then a designer and has now finally settled and accepted his fate as a frontend developer. Despite his deep knowledge of CSS and HTML, he mainly specializes in JavaScript and is well known as the creator of Raphaël as well as other JavaScript libraries.

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