THE WHEEL IS SPINNING, BUT
THE HAMSTER IS DEAD… CHRIS HEILMANN (﴾@CODEPO8)﴿, SMARTWEB, BUCHAREST, SEPTEMBER 2015

HI THERE!

HOW ARE YOU?

I assume that after a
full day of great talks and meeting people who work in the same space as you, THINGS ARE GREAT!

Inspired Fascinated Excited Hopeful …
a bit overwhelmed? YOU PROBABLY ARE

GOOD! HOLD ON TO THIS
FEELING!

DON’T GO BACK INTO THE
OTHER MODE THAT IS VERY COMMON THESE DAYS…

THAT FEELING THAT YOU DON’T
BELONG…

THAT FEELING THAT YOU’RE NOT
GOOD ENOUGH…

THE FEELING THAT YOU CAN’T
CONTRIBUTE ANYTHING USEFUL…

THE FEELING THAT YOU SHOULD
APOLOGISE FOR NOT USING THE NEWEST AND COOLEST…

DO NOT GO THERE -‐
AGAIN

BECAUSE… …IT IS ALL BULLSHIT
WE TELL OURSELVES

A LOT OF THE STRESS
WE FEEL IS HOME-‐MADE. WE DRAG ONE ANOTHER DOWN.

WE TURNED ENGINEERING INTO A
RELIGION -‐ WITH ALL THE DOGMA AND HOLY WARS THAT COMES WITH.

WE EXPECT EVERYBODY TO GET
PURE HAPPINESS FROM CODING… https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/597276242887348224

WORKING AT A PACE NO
HUMAN SHOULD WORK IN…

WHILST BELIEVING THAT TECHNICAL INNOVATION
WILL MAKE A BETTER WORLD FOR HUMANS… Humans need not apply! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-‐S557XQU

WE CELEBRATE OUR SOCIAL INEPTITUDE
IN OUR HIRING AND TRAINING…

FIZZING WITH THE BUZZ… http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FizzBuzzTest
The "Fizz-‐Buzz test" is an interview question designed to help filter out the 99.5% of programming job candidates who can't seem to program their way out of a wet paper bag. "Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print “Fizz” instead of the number and for the multiples of five print “Buzz”. For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print “FizzBuzz”." “

FIZZING WITH THE BUZZ… http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FizzBuzzTest
The "Fizz-‐Buzz test" is an interview question designed to help filter out the 99.5% of programming job candidates who can't seem to program their way out of a wet paper bag. "Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print “Fizz” instead of the number and for the multiples of five print “Buzz”. For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print “FizzBuzz”." “

THE HAMMERS WE WIELD… https://twitter.com/estellevw/status/645266254459088897
http://codepen.io/estelle/pen/wKWwey

WE COMPLAIN ABOUT A LACK
OF DIVERSITY AND INVITING ENVIRONMENTS… …AND RUN HACKDAYS TO SOLVE THAT PROBLEM!

WE TEACH WORKING FOR A
HI-‐FIDELITY MEDIUM USING HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLES…

AND HAVE AN OVERWHELMING AMOUNT
OF RESOURCES WITH DISAGREEING ADVICE. https://medium.com/@_cmdv_/i-‐want-‐to-‐ learn-‐javascript-‐in-‐2015-‐e96cd85ad225

THERE ARE SO MUCH BETTER
WAYS AT OUR DISPOSAL… http://worrydream.com/#!/LearnableProgramming Brett Victor: Learnable Programming (﴾2012)﴿

SO CELEBRATE THE CHOICES YOU
HAVE AND FIND YOUR WAY OF LEARNING WHAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE TO YOU!

TRUST IN YOUR ABILITY TO
LEARN!

NOT EVERYTHING IS DOOM AND
GLOOM AND US RUNNING OUT OF TIME…

WHAT WE’RE EXPERIENCING IS GROWING
PAINS…

WE’RE FEELING THREATENED BY NATURAL
EVOLUTION AND CHANGE.

YES, THE WEB AND OUR
TECHNOLOGIES NEED TO EVOLVE AND CATCH UP WITH NEW DEMANDS…

BUT THIS DOESN’T MEAN WE
ALL NEED TO TOSS AWAY ALL WE HAVE ACHIEVED AND DEMANDED…

LET’S GO BACK TO WHEN
I STARTED AS A WEB DEVELOPER.

I REMEMBER WHEN THIS WAS
ALL FIELDS…

I REMEMBER WHEN THIS WAS
ALL FIELDS…

THEN HTML5 HAPPENED… • required
attribute • new field types: date, color, tel, number…

THEN HTML5 HAPPENED… • required
attribute • new field types: date, color, tel, number… don’t call me!

HOW EXCELLENT IS THIS? ✓
Form validation ✓ Pattern definitions ✓ Automatic filling by browsers ✓ Hi-‐Fi interaction

SOLVING A FEW SMALL SCREEN
INTERACTION SPECIFIC ISSUES…

SELECTING A VALUE FROM A
MASSIVE LIST IS NOT FUN…

YOU CAN, HOWEVER, TYPE AND
KIND OF AUTOCOMPLETE…

IN HTML5, WE GOT A
DATALIST FOR THAT…

BY UNDERSTANDING HTML5 PARSING, WE
CAN HAVE BOTH… https://adactio.com/journal/4272

HTML5 BROWSERS GET THE DATALIST
FUNCTIONALITY…

OLDER BROWSERS GET A SENSIBLE
INTERFACE…

ALL THIS IS POSSIBLE BECAUSE
OF THE FAULT TOLERANT NATURE OF HTML (﴾AND CSS)﴿ on('error', () => { shrug(); line.next(); });

WE DEMANDED THIS NOT TO
GO AWAY!

AND YET, WE FORFEIT THIS
FEATURE EVERY SINGLE DAY…

…AND CELEBRATE SOLUTIONS THAT ARE
PRETTY MUCH UNRELIABLE.

WHY DO WE DO THIS?

THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE: WE
FEEL THAT WE NEED TO BE IN CONTROL.

WITH JAVASCRIPT, WE ARE IN
CONTROL AND WE CAN FIX ALMOST ANYTHING. =

THE PROBLEM IS THAT US
IN CONTROL ALSO MEANS US RESPONSIBLE FOR THE OUTCOME…

WE FORFEIT ALL THE BEAUTIFUL
AND IMPORTANT THINGS BROWSERS ALREADY DO FOR US…

FOR THE SAKE OF DEVELOPER
CONVENIENCE AND A PERCEIVED CHANCE OF CONTROL.

I’M NOT SAYING NOT TO
USE JAVASCRIPT -‐ FAR FROM IT.

BUT I BEG OF YOU
TO CONSIDER WHAT YOU DO AND STOP RELYING ON MAGICAL SOLUTIONS.

THERE ARE A FEW REASONS
FOR THAT: • The web is a mess. The average web page creeps up to 2MB with hundreds of dependencies. • Outdated frameworks and helper libraries hinder browser interoperability. The quick fix of today is the part of the landfill of tomorrow. • By trying to control the web we created parallel solutions for desktop and mobile -‐ each of which disappointing.

CHECK WHAT YOU BUILT AND
FIX IT FORWARD… PLEASE? http://dev.modern.ie/tools/staticscan/ https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/static-‐code-‐scan

THE WEB IS WORLD-‐WIDE AND
WE’RE GETTING FRUSTRATED FOR NOT DELIVERING WHAT THE VALLEY WANTS…

THE HYPE IS MOVING AWAY
FROM THE WEB TOWARDS MORE CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENTS. THE WEB CAN’T COMPETE AS IT IS AGAINST ITS NATURE.

THE NEXT USERS ARE NOT
THOSE WHO COMPLAIN THE WEB IS NOT AS GOOD AS NATIVE APPS… https://vimeo.com/139312920 https://brucelawson.github.io/talks/2015/velocity Bruce Lawson at SOTB 2015

PROXY BROWSERS ARE A BIG
THING THERE… https://vimeo.com/130296585 https://speakerdeck.com/tkadlec/better-‐by-‐ proxy-‐at-‐mobilism-‐2015 Tim Kadlec: Better by Proxy

WE’RE ADDICTED TO MAKING THINGS
GENERIC… http://josdejong.com/blog/2015/01/06/code-reuse/

RELEASING OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS IS
NOT RELEASING FREE CODE AND HOPING PEOPLE FIX AND MAINTAIN FOR YOU… The toxic side of free by Remy Sharp (﴾@rem)﴿ https://remysharp.com/2015/09/14/jsbin-toxic-part-1

OPEN SOURCE IS FREE -‐
AS IN PUPPY!

THE WEB IS A GIFT
TO US ALL, AND YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE IN MANY WAYS. ALL OF US PLAYING ON THE BLEEDING EDGE IS MISSING THE POINT.

BE ALONG FOR THE
RIDE…

SOMETIMES NOT CONTROLLING THINGS IS
WHEN THE FUN STARTS…

We all have different desires
and needs, but if we don’t discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. – Bill Watterson

SO BE ACTIVE! ✓ Improve
your basic skills, catch up on what’s possible. caniuse.com is a riveting read! ✓ Start helping people who are not up to date. You start teaching and you end up learning. ✓ Report problems, demand support for basic features, not only for the hot, new (﴾half-‐baked)﴿ ones. ✓ Reach out beyond our echo chamber if you want to reach people who need the knowledge you have.

THANK YOU!
CHRIS HEILMANN
@CODEPO8