So, I’m sitting in the basement of a bar somewhere slightly south of the River Thames at the Javascript Conference Thing. Arriving late, I was consigned to the edges somewhat, as the mass of people has taken over a RAID (That’s Redundant Array of Inexpensive Desktops) in a corner of the bar. We’ve broken up to get more beer, so I’m taking the oppertunity to compose stuff. The Wonder of WIFI not having made it to this basement, I’ll have to post it when I get back. Should have downloaded SubetherEdit before I left, really.
The major subject, as you might expect, is the migration from Document.write and friends over to the Brave New World of DOM-based scripting, and how to get the world to migrate to this from the other in much the same way as the Web Standards Project convinced the world that Tables-based design was no longer acceptable. The fact they managed this is going to help us more than a little, as CSS designs are far easier to Hijax (That’s the new term for Hijacking a page using AJAX, as invented… about 15 seconds ago), but we have something of a public relations mountian to climb to convince the world at large that Javascript isn’t just for mouseovers anymore.
To follow the same path as the CSS people, we need better discussion (along the lines of css-d), better examples (Blue robot, for example) and a figurehead (Dunstan has been nominated God Of Javascript. nobody is yet worshiping. As a matter of fact, he’s sitting in front of me eating a burger, which is ungodlike. It should at least be glowing, or something. Maybe some pineapple as a halo. Anyway. The God of Javascript is attempting to protect his chips from Aquarius.)
Not really sure what I can contribute here, really. Still working on ways we could converse better. Someone mentioned “A List Apart”, and my mind’s gone into invention mode, bringing back from the gumbo of half-formed ideas “B-List Apart”, a sort of Kuro5hin (Probably using Scoop) specifically for web development and AJAX-style articles.
Anyway, the discussion moves on.
(Later, from the train)
We need a mind-shift in the Intranet world. Jeremy Keith suggests a series of back-to-basics articles, to introduce people who want to learn about the Brave New World into it. Someone who’s identity I didn’t catch is going to organise a mailing list.
At this point we kind of split up, those who remained went upstairs and geeked possible ways of solving the OnLoad problem, on which Dean was authoritative. Shortly afterwards, I left.
It was good to meet/see people, and it was good to discuss this. The pub was nice, the food was good too, and there wasn’t a single non-mac laptop on the table.
People Who Were There:
- Me (Aquarion, Checked shirt, black glasses)
- Simon Willison
- Stuart who is Aquarius
- Dean Edwards of the IE7 that isn’t IE7
- Jeremy Keith who does indeed have cooler hair than you.
- Nick Fitz
- Many, Many other people whose names I didn’t catch, which is going to prove very embarrassing when I find out they are people whose weblogs I’ve read for years.