For the third year in a row I have attended the largest JavaScript conference in Europe: dotJS. This time I travelled with my amazing collagues from DAZN and we had a blast!
In this short blog post I want to share a few of the things that I learnt during the event which I think it’s worth sharing with you.
Variable fonts
What’s a variable font?
Variable fonts are an evolution of the OpenType font specification that enables many different variations of a typeface to be incorporated into a single file, rather than having a separate font file for every width, weight, or style. They let you access all the variations contained in a given font file via CSS and a single @font-face reference. Read more: developer.mozilla.org
This will enable designers and frontend developers to build really personalised experiences and interesting UIs with fancy effects! Accessibility can also benefit from variable fonts! Be warned, the CodePen above will most likely trigger your laptop fans to keep the processor cool 😂
If you want to learn more about it, I’ve collected some useful links:
- Variable Fonts - Supercharged
- medium.com/@clagnut/get-started-with-variable-fonts
- v-fonts.com - A simple resource for finding and trying variable fonts
The State of JavaScript 2018
We surveyed over 20,000 JavaScript developers to figure out what they’re using, what they’re happy with, and what they want to learn. And the result is a unique collection of stats and insights that will hopefully help you make your own way through the JavaScript ecosystem.
Figures are clear, JavaScript is growing along side with the satisfaction level of the developers using it.
Although, we all know the effort needed to cope with the JavaScript fatigue, we have the advantage of having a huge ecosystem of open source projects and great tooling today to build our JavaScript applications. I suggest you to use the results of te StateOfJs survey has a tool to help you decide what to learn, adopt or simply try for your next JavaScript project.
Interested in the stats? Check out 2018.stateofjs.com 🚀
Best of JS
This is another tool that comes in handy when you are not sure about what npm module to pick or what’s the next big thing to learn, this website lists all sort of JavaScript libraries, frameworks, learning resources, books for you to easily find the right tool for the job.
Next time you need a library to deal with dates, or a React Component for animations, or a Node.js API framework, or simply just to stay up to date with latest released projects, consider paying a visit to bestofjs.org
webhint
webhint is a linting tool that will help you with your site’s accessibility, speed, security and more, by checking your code for best practices and common errors. Use the online scanner or the CLI to start checking your site for errors.
Similar to Google Lighthouse, Microsoft webhint can analyse your website and give you hints for improvements around accessibility, performance, security and more. It also has a CLI and it integrates with Visual Studio Code so you can get you code statically scanned by webhint while you are coding!
Try the online scanner or run webhint from your CLI: npx hint https://example.com
otto
A JavaScript interpreter in Go
This feels very experimental but if you ever need to run JavaScript in a Go project, you know what to use.
vm := otto.New()
vm.Run(`
abc = 2 + 2;
console.log("The value of abc is " + abc); // 4
`)
Repository: github.com/robertkrimen/otto
deno
A secure TypeScript runtime on V8
Deno is a JavaScript runtime, or I should better say TypeScript runtime as it natively supports TypeScript. By the creator of the most popular JavaScript runtime Node.js, Ryan Dahl, deno is a project that aims to address all the regrets that Ryan has with Node.js.
He presented the project during this talk: 10 Things I Regret About Node.js - Ryan Dahl - JSConf EU 2018 and I find fascinating his motivation and hard work to put this together.
Compared to Node.js, deno is still under development but we already know that it has no package.json neither npm and it’s explicitly not compatible with Node.
If you want to know more about deno or the thoughts behind it, check these out:
- Ryan Dahl is fixing his Node.js design regrets with Deno
- 10 Things I Regret About Node.js - Ryan Dahl - JSConf EU 2018
- github.com/denoland/deno
JavaScript beyond the web
The adoption of JavaScript in Desktop applications and video games has recently grown a lot. During the event, Tobias Ahlin, Experience Design Director at Mojang, the company who built Minecraft, was telling us the story of their journey in rebuilding Minecraft in JavaScript to allow players to create custom mods in plain HTML, CSS and JS, which opens the door to infinite and very interactive mods.
Such adventure it’s extremely challenging, especially due to the performance and compatibility issue one may encounter but it’s definitely possible and games like Battlefield 1 are proof that this is doable.
Yes, believe me or not, the user interface of Battlefield 1 is actually built using React and MobX.
http2
We all heard that http2 is out while now and it’s great. Big companies are already using it but most of us didn’t have a chance to work with it yet.
It’s your chance to take a look at some interesting readings and start using it:
Conclusions
Attending a JavaScript conference is always exciting for me, I have very good memories of the previous dotJS days and I love its style and the location, Paris. I hope the speakers line-up for next year to be even better with better talks!
The tickets for dotJS 2019 are already on sale for early birds. For the first time next year there will be 2 days - one with talks focused on Frontend and the following one about Backend & Language.
Get your ticket on 2019.dotjs.io
If you like attending or speaking at tech conferences…
Consider joining us at DAZN as we have a budget for that!
We are building a streaming platform at scale with some of the coolest and cutting edge technologies.
We are an amazing team which is growing and looking for:
and much more! Check out engineering.dazn.com for the full list of open positions!
Feel free to DM me on Twitter or LinkedIn to ask more about the job. I’m more than happy to answer all your questions
Thanks for reading 😊