Mad Web Skills

Today’s workshop, “Javascript: The Good Parts” was run by Douglas Crockford. Doug is a very clever guy who is part of the committee organising the next version Javascript. Although this session was more of a lecture than a workshop, it takes a session with a guy like this to show you how little you actually know about Javascript. I left this workshop with so much more knowledge about Javascript that I came with, which I definitely was not expecting, having worked with Javascript for years now.

Doug started with a history of computing in general which, on reflection, seemed a bit like unnecessary filler as he seemed to rush through the final topics towards the end of the day as he ran out of time. He soon moved on to pointing out some of the bad parts of the Javascript spec, which was a real eye opener. What followed was a heap of useful tips, functions and explanations that explained a lot of the reasons why things are done the way they are. I also got a few unintentionally great band names that came from some of Doug’s terminology, including “Syntactic Sugar”, “The Lunatic Fringe” and “Fat Metal”.

Following the workshop was the Port 80 meet-up, which I missed out on last year. It was a great chance to network as well as catch up with peeps that I’d met over the previous two conferences (many of who had surprisingly remembered my name, or at least knew me as the guy who looked like Jon Snook). The drinks flowed freely, but I managed to pace myself.

First day of the conference proper is tomorrow, so I’d better get some shut-eye.

If you’ve been following my Twitter page, you’ll know that I’m currently in Sydney for the Web Directions conference. My hotel room is the size of a shoe box, but at least it’s quite comfortable (I brought my own pillow this time). The super-expensive hotel broadband is currently running at dial-up speeds. The shower pressure is nice and strong, however, I’ve gotta say, whoever chose the placement for the bathroom mirror is either oblivious to the obvious or seriously disturbed.

Well, my day one workshop is over and my head is well and truly full after attending Jeff Croft‘s Building a CMS with Django. I went in with no clue about Django or Python but left with not only a greater understanding of the two, but also a lot of new ideas for CMS features and making my code more modular. I can’t say that I’ll be using Django from here on out (I’m still a big fan of CodeIgnighter) but there was definitely a lot of info that will come in handy in future.

Day two is all about Javascript, which is much closer to my comfort zone, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s workshop.

It’s Web Directions time again! Man, I love this conference.

I’ve been to Web Directions for the last couple of years and every time I walk away with not only new ideas, but renewed enthusiasm to get stuff done and innovate. (That’s not to say that stuff will actually get done, but it feels great!)

This year I won’t get to hang with Travis, who I met at WDS06 (back when it was just WD06) as he’s currently jet-setting across the US of A, so if you see me kicking about on my own, please come over and say hi.

The funny thing is that its only around the time of Web Directions that I really get interested in social networking on the web. My Facebook page gets more active, there’s more tweets flying across the place and the Flickr account gets dusted off in anticipation. (I’ve got a nice new camera, so there’s no excuses.)

But also, as with every year around this time, I get the same regrets. This year’s regrets include:

• I never got around to making that “NOT SNOOK” T-shirt I was thinking about making in order to avoid confusion this year.
• In fact, my trendy T-shirt collection is kinda lame, and it’s too late to get an order from Threadless to me before the conference. (I’m hoping to pick me up one of those cool molt:n ones at the event, but I can’t decide whether I like design or code more.)
• My website is STILL using a free WordPress template. *facepalm*
• I was really hoping to get OzChat up and running in some form by now. I’ve still got a bunch of OzChat.net bubble pens and stuff that would be good swag to hand out to cool people.
• That seems to be the theme with many of my personal projects: not a lot gets finished. Client work gets first bite of my time, and when that’s done I tend to relax offline. I’m sure this is common among full-time + part-time-freelance web developers such as myself, but it would still be nice to have something cool to show off.

I’m currently in a mad rush to try and get all current work off my plate so I don’t have to worry about anything next week, so I’ll see you at Web Directions.

PS. I found some notes I’d taken from WDS07 that I never got around to posting. I’ll pop them online and back-date it to last year if I get time.

In browser news, we’ve recently seen the release of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, as well as the surprising (for me anyway) Google Chrome.

First, IE8B2. I’ve been playing with the new beta on and off over the last couple of days, and I can honestly say it’s actually pretty good. I would say that this release has more right to call itself a beta than its predecessor. I’d always felt that Beta 1 was of “Alpha” quality at best, if not “Technology Preview” standards. There’s still a-ways to go, and I won’t be changing my default browser to IE any time soon, but I believe that IE8 can only do good in this world. (Please don’t prove me wrong, Microsoft!)

Now, the infamous GBrowser has been predicted for years, but finally, and without warning, it’s here. Google Chrome for Windows (with the Mac version on the way) was announced via Scott McCloud comic yesterday. I downloaded it this morning, had a bit of a play and found it to be pretty damn good for a first release. It reacts very swiftly, although Firefox is also pretty quick in vanilla, no-addons mode. The interface is nice and simple, certainly better than IE7+, although it could do with a Firefox-like extensions/add-ons API. In fact, that’s about all that’s stopping me from switching right now. There are just too many awesome add-ons for Firefox that I can not do without. The Webkit rendering engine, which admittedly I’m not too familiar with, is quite good although I’ve come across the odd weird CSS glitch when viewing some my sites, but I think it’s more due to my inexperience with Webkit’s intricacies.

In a world… ah, who am I kidding. Nobody can do Don LaFontaine quite like Don LaFontaine, who sadly died on Monday at the age of 68. Movie trailers will never be the same again. The Washington Post has a touching tribute.