I’ve been looking forward to JSConf 2010 since last year when I wasn’t able to hit the event. JSConf, for those that don’t know, is one of the premier events for JavaScript developers and it attracts the best of the best in the JS world. People like Douglas Crockford, John Resig, John Hamm, Pete Higgins, Alex Russell and more are all in attendance this year with most giving some hardcore presentations on the newest innovations in front-end development.
JSConf is very unique in the way it’s run blending amazing presentations with some wild fun. The theme for this year is “pirates” and the conference is definitely reflecting that with organizers dressed as swash bucklers and plenty of swords, hooks and skull/cross-bones to go around. In addition, they had a pre-conference mini-conference/party called ScurvyConf which was an amazing social gathering.
ScurvyConf, while mainly one big social meetup, also allowed developers whose talks weren’t accepted for the main JSConf tracks a chance to do a quick presentation to the crowd. Presenters like Nitobi’s Brian Leroux and a shirtless Tom Hughes-Croucher (Yahoo!) got the crowd going with their lively presos. I had a bit of a fan-boi moment when I got to meet Billy Hoffman who wrote the book on Ajax security. For me, the big win was meeting so many of the people I only know virtually and actually putting a person to the online conversations. It’s those moments that make attending conferences so valuable.
Microsoft
I received a lot of feedback about joining Microsoft and all of it was very supportive and congratulatory. In addition, people are excited about Internet Explorer 9 and feel it’s a definite step in the right direction. IE6 is still a big pain point and Google’s Alex Russell had some especially strong opinions on why Google Frame is the right technology to finally help IE6 users move towards a better browser experience.
