I had the opportunity to attend the Fluent Conference held at San Francisco from March 8th to 10th 2016.
Here is a brief summary of the various sessions I attended and what I learnt from them.
##Functional reactive JavaScript on the client and the server
- Pete Hodgson from Thoughtworks gave a wonderful talk about what Reactive programming is. He focussed specifically on using Rx.js and explained what streams are and how they can be used to model everything - from a series of async values, to node streams, to even mouse clicks. Using one API to model everything as a stream is a huge benefit, but I find the Rx programming paradigm needs considerable effort in learning and mastering it. I am still trying to wrap my mind around what exactly does an 'Observable of Observables' mean. The takeaway for me was to start using Rx.js on a very small portion of an existing application and grow from there. 'Don't try to boil the ocean' is good advice.
My rating for this talk: 5/5 (based on topic relevance and speaker delivery)
Slides for the talk can be found here
##Repeatable processes for building secure containers Ryan Jarvine from RedHat did a good job introducing Kubernetes and OpenShift. The talk was focussed on how using OpenShift can simplify application deployment and manage your scaling needs. It was cool to see a demonstraction how OpenShift was able to maintain a set of app nodes always running, bringing up new nodes when a few of them went down, while exposing the status of the infrastructure in a neat UI. I have to say this was more of a Dev-Ops talk than a Front-End engineering talk.
Slides for the talk can be found here
My rating for this talk: 2.5/5 (not very relevant to my everyday work)
##Create scalable and secure mobile apps that work offline Nic Raboy from Couchbase talked about how we can use Couchbase to solve a really hard problem in software development - syncing state across different devices, especially when they come online/offline at various points in time. The talk explored installing CouchBase Server and CounchBase Sync Gateway to sync data between an Android and iOS app running in simulators. While the problem CouchBase solves is an interesting one and relevant to me, I walked out with not much of any satisfaction.
My rating for this talk: 3/5 (for some reason, I felt bored half way through the presentation and left)
##Design for nondesigners This was one of the talks that I really enjoyed. Tracy Osborn presented on the topic of what makes Design essential, and how it is important to focus on 'How things work' when we build our applications. It was encouraging to know that when it comes to beautiful design, it is not just developers, even real designers struggle every single day to produce quality work. This picture says a lot about the thought process involved. Some of the other practical tips I received included:
- Do not start from a blank slate. Get started quickly using Boostrap or other grid frameworks.
- Use color palletes to make your app stand out (http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/4134094/i436).
- Use good fonts (a few at most) to make your app look better. Sites like Beautiful Web type and Typewolf help to quickly see how text can be made good.
- Get design inspiration from sites like CSS Mania and Site Inspire. Steal, do not copy.
My rating for this talk: 5/5 (for relevance and speaker delivery)
##Promise to not use Promises: Observables in ES7 Brian Holt from Netflix did a good talk on how Observables can replace promises. This talk re-emphasized what I learnt from the Functional-reactive-js talk by Pete Hodgson. When applied to solve the right problems, reactive programming can be a great fit.
Slides can be found at: https://speakerdeck.com/btholt/promise-not-to-use-promises-es7-observables
My rating for this talk: 4/5
##Lunch session with Jafar Hussain This was a good one, when we had Jafar Hussain from Netflix join us for lunch at our table. Jafar is the smart guy who talks about Rx programming. You should have seen his talks on Youtube about Rx. If not, go search for it. He is such a good speaker and knows a lot about the finer details involving programming, libraries and frameworks. It was interesting to hear him talk about React, Redux, Rx.js and how none of the state-container libraries that exist today address the issue of asynchrony. Meaning, most of the frameworks help developers take care of the application state, but do little in the way of managing the list of asynchronous requests made by unrelated components in the application.
##The Seif Project Doughlas Crockford presented his talk on what the Seif project was about. It is a new application delivery mechanism for the web, that is safe, secure and reliable. The idea was to introduce a new way of transmitting data from server to the client. While there are pieces of the project that are complete and open for public feedback, much of the work is still in progress. The ideas he put forth seemed interesting, but it is quite a big challenge to get a buy-in from major brower makers to adopt this.
##Speaker Notes Kyle Simpson, speaker and author of You-Dont-Know-JS series of books gave a talk that covered several meta-programming topics. Including privilege awareness and the necessity for regular people to share their voices on stage. Kyle was stepping down from public speaking after his Fluent talk. It was a bit sad to see him leave the public podium. A couple of things stood out to me from his talk
- If you wait till you are an expert at something to talk about it, it is too late.
- To whom much is given, much will be expected Link
There were a few other sessions that I attended, but the above list provides a good summary. If you have a chance to attend Fluent next time, I recommend it. You will NOT become an expert at anything, but you will certainly get a good overview of where the industry is moving and what the main players are thinking about.
Thanks for reading!
Thanks for slides links!