Async

#41: Promises, Promises

2012-02-03T15:47:29Z

Thurs, 9th February 2012 (arrive from 7.15pm for a 7.45pm start). Free entry.
@The Skiff, 6 Gloucester Street, Brighton, BN1 4EW. (map)

→ Sign up to the event on Lanyrd

This session, with Premasagar Rose, is an introduction to asynchronous flow control in JavaScript. We’ll be looking at how to cleanly handle multiple callbacks from Ajax requests, setTimeouts, loading images and other asynchronous routines. In particular, we’ll focus on jQuery.Deferred, which implements the Promises design pattern.

We’ll work through some practical, step-by-step code examples, looking at how jQuery uses promises with all of its Ajax methods, see how they can control and interact with jQuery’s animation effects, and how jQuery.Deferred can be used to create custom promises that control the flow of a website or web application.

Prem is the principal of local web applications company, Dharmafly, is a hacker and mentor at Rewired State, and helps to run Async.

#40: Scaling Your JavaScript Application Architecture

2012-02-03T16:09:13Z

Thurs, 26th January 2012 (arrive from 7.15pm for a 7.45pm start). Free entry.
@The Skiff, 6 Gloucester Street, Brighton, BN1 4EW. (map)

→ Sign up to the event on Lanyrd

Developers creating JavaScript applications these days usually use a combination of MVC, modules, widgets and plugins for their architecture. They also use a DOM manipulation library like jQuery.

Whilst this works great for apps that are built at a smaller-scale, what happens when your project really starts to grow? In this talk, Addy Osmani presents an effective set of design patterns for medium to large-scale JavaScript application architecture that have previously been used at both AOL and Yahoo, amongst others.

You’ll learn how to keep your application logic truly decoupled, build modules that can exist on their own or be dropped into other projects, and future-proof your code in case you need to switch to a different DOM library in the future.

This session is aimed at intermediate-advanced JavaScript developers, but is designed such that beginners should be able to get a takeaway from it, without being too overwhelmed.

Addy Osmani is a JavaScript developer for AOL who prolifically writes about JavaScript on a weekly basis. His material covers everything from building large-scale applications to using polyfills to bring the web’s latest hotness to older browsers.

Whilst Addy loves writing, his true passion is in helping move the web (even a little) forward. He’s a member of the jQuery Core bug triage and docs teams and has also contributed to open-source projects such as Modernizr.

Addy is currently writing his second open-source book, ‘Backbone Fundamentals‘, about Backbone.js, which can be downloaded from GitHub along with his some of his other open source projects.

Update: videos of the talk

We’ve uploaded videos of the session to our new Vimeo account:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

More info on Addy’s blog.

#39: jQuery Best Practices

2012-02-02T03:36:42Z

Thurs, 12th January 2012 (arrive from 7.15pm for a 7.45pm start). Free entry.
@The Skiff, 6 Gloucester Street, Brighton, BN1 4EW. (map)

→ Sign up to the event on Lanyrd

For the first session of 2012, we are getting back to fundamentals to present what we hope will be the first in a series of jQuery best practice sessions. Whether you are new to jQuery or simply want to address some bad habits, then this is for you.

Our speaker for the evening will be Sky Apperley. Sky is a freelance front-end developer and iPhone app developer. His talk will be useful to beginners and intermediate jQuery users alike. It will include some useful practices and tips for using the browser’s developer tools and debug console, using a Content Delivery Network, testing new code, optimising jQuery selectors and avoiding unnecessary code duplication.

Towards the end of this session, we are hoping to get a new regular slot off the ground, ‘Plugin Roundabout‘ – a condensed version of our “Favourite jQuery Plugin” session, where the group shared information about favourite plugins. So do come along and bring your discoveries.

Update: Notes and links are online

You can see Sky’s notes here: skyapperley.co.uk/asnycjs.html

#38: The Realtime Web

2011-12-22T16:26:06Z

Thurs, 8th December 2011 (arrive from 7.15pm for a 7.45pm start). Free entry.
@The Skiff, 6 Gloucester Street, Brighton, BN1 4EW. (map)

→ Sign up to the event on Lanyrd

Over the last decade, we’ve seen a fundamental shift in the way the Web works. Our users are becoming accustomed to seeing new content delivered immediately to the browser without refreshing the page. This has been possible for quite some time but recently new APIs (WebSockets and Server-Sent Events) have been introduced that make this simpler and more efficient.

In this talk, we’ll look at what the “Realtime Web” is, what you can use it for, and how it can increase user engagement. We’ll also look at the API for WebSockets as well as services that exist to allow you to easily add realtime functionality to your own existing products / services.

Micheil Smith is a developer at Pusher, Node.js core contributor and active member of the JavaScript community.

#37: Using Underscore.js with jQuery

2011-12-09T15:42:39Z

Thurs, 24th November 2011 (arrive from 7.15pm for a 7.45pm start). Free entry.
@The Skiff, 6 Gloucester Street, Brighton, BN1 4EW. (map)

→ Sign up to the event on Lanyrd

For this Async session, we are glad to present a talk from Dan Neame, a JavaScript engineer at Brighton-based startup Brandwatch, on working with Underscore.js and jQuery.

Underscore.js is a ‘utility-belt library’ and it makes it a breeze to solve many of the common problems you’ll see when working with jQuery.

Dan will have some interactive examples to show how jQuery and Underscore can work together to save time and headaches. Wading through an AJAX response? There’s a function for that… Laggy scroll listeners? There’s a function for that too!

Update: slides online

See lanyrd.com/2011/asyncjs-underscore/slides/

#36: International JavaScript Show n’ Tell 2011

2011-11-02T18:40:22Z

Thurs, 10th November 2011 (arrive from 7.15pm for a 7.45pm start). Free entry.
@The Skiff, 6 Gloucester Street, Brighton, BN1 4EW. (map)

→ Sign up to the event on Lanyrd

It’s that time of year again. As a troupe of JavaScripters from the back of beyond descend upon the humble shores of Brighton for another heady dose of the Full Frontal JavaScript conference, we wee Async folk will prop open our doors and welcome our international kinsfolk, for the breaking of bread and the sharing of our lofty wares.

Translation: On the night before Full Frontal, you are cordially invited to Async’s “International Show n’ Tell”. If you’d like to take a 5-minute slot, to tell us about a project, a technique or a story, please add a comment to this blog post. (Check out last year’s event for some inspiration).

Anyway, if you’d like to just attend, please sign up on the Lanyrd event page. See you there.

#35: Beyond Arial

2011-10-06T16:40:09Z

Thurs, 27th October 2011 (arrive from 7.15pm for a 7.45pm start). Free entry.
@The Skiff, 6 Gloucester Street, Brighton, BN1 4EW. (map)

→ Sign up to the event on Lanyrd

Using the CSS3 @font-face declaration we can embed fonts within web pages using a web standards approach.
We’ve been able to embed images, video and other media on websites, now fonts too can be embedded without relying on hacks such as Cufon and sIFR to achieve this.

There are a variety of solutions for delivering fonts to your web page, and there are best practices to consider which will ensure speed and reliability when delivering web fonts. Josh Emerson will talk about implementing web fonts for cross browser support, highlighting design considerations and potential pitfalls. He will also talk about using the Google WebFont Loader which offers greater control over loading web fonts.

Josh is a front-end developer at Clearleft where he works on Fontdeck, a web fonts solution.

#34: My Favourite jQuery Plugin

2011-10-06T16:43:14Z

Thurs, 13th October 2011 (arrive from 7.15pm for a 7.45pm start). Free entry.
@The Skiff, 6 Gloucester Street, Brighton, BN1 4EW. (map)

→ Sign up to the event on Lanyrd

jQuery is so ubiquitous, it almost blends in these days. It seems to be part of every designer and coder’s toolset.

Whilst many may be used to jQuery’s online forums and gatherings as the means of interacting with other jQuery users, there isn’t currently a face-to-face meetup focussing on jQuery in digital Brighton. So, a few weeks ago, whilst at the Brighton Farm, I mooted the idea of a jQuery user forum for Brighton. The idea got a positive reception and, with the good folk here at Async, we thought we would get the ball rolling and find out what kind of sessions people would be interested in.

And so, to kick off, everyone is invited to come and tell us about their favourite jQuery plugin. We’ll bring up each plugin’s website on screen and discuss what it does and why it’s useful. We thought this would be a good ice-breaker and could introduce some concepts for further exploration in future sessions.

In particular, we would like to invite those who would class themselves as a ‘user’ of jQuery and not necessarily a programmer. jQuery might be your first foray into the world of code beyond HTML and that’s great! I myself, as more of a PHP dev, would not profess to be a jQuery expert and probably fall more into the user category. I hope to gain as much as everyone from these sessions and we should be able to harness some of Brighton’s evident talent for future indulgence and nourishment.

A little about me: I am currently working as a PHP developer on quite a large framework, where I am also called upon to use some of my front-end skills to look after the “front end of the back end” and the odd front end bit of the public site. But mainly I am working with PHP using Test Driven Development and Mercurial version control. I also still tout about for whole site builds as a freelancer where I get to combine jQuery with PHP to my heart’s content…

In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle

2011-10-07T16:46:00Z

The two Async meetups in September were transformed into hacknights as part of the Brighton Digital Festival, with local developers and designers working together on a collaborative art project: the JavaScript Jungle – jungle.asyncjs.com.

Both sessions were a great success, with around 25 attendees for each meet-up, with some people coming down specially from London and beyond to take part.

Async regulars and newcomers alike descended on the regular Async meeting place The Skiff. Seasoned JavaScript coders were joined by artists and others curious to see how the jungle was being put together.

The technical goal of the sessions were to experiment and try something new, to learn drawing and animation with JavaScript, as well as event-based interactions between different objects. The wider goal of the project was to to bring together local developers and designers who may never have worked with one another, for a bit of community bonding.

Working together in small teams or flying solo, creatures were created using a variety of techniques, including Coffeescript, SVG, Canvas, CSS3 animations and even good-old animated gifs and image sprites.

A world of fascinating creatures has evolved, including an elephant, flocking birds and the amazing flying hippo-bee.

In advance of the meetups, we created the barebones environment, and provided a simple way for people to add their own creatures. The creatures can interact with one another and the environment. The Pavilion Crab, for example, only comes out during the day; flowers grow after each rainstorm; the UFO abducts unsuspecting victims. And don’t get too close to the lion, unless you want to be eaten!

All of the code used to create the Jungle (and the creatures within) is available on GitHub. If you want to make your own addition to the Jungle, it isn’t too late! Take a look at the wiki for tips on creating your own creature.

Visit the Jungle in all its glory!

#32+33: JavaScript Jungle

2011-10-07T16:58:29Z

Thurs, 8th & 22nd September 2011 (arrive from 7.15pm for a 7.45pm start). Free entry.
@The Skiff, 6 Gloucester Street, Brighton, BN1 4EW. (map)

→ Sign up to event 1 and event 2

As part of the Brighton Digital Festival, the two Async meetups in September will transform into a collaborative art project: to create a collectively coded canvas of animated creations, the JavaScript Jungle.

We’ll first learn a little about visual technologies, such as creating vector graphics in the browser with Raphael.js and SVG, and drawing on HTML5 Canvas with libraries like Processing.js, EaselJS and Paper.js. Then the hacking begins…

Working either in groups or on our own, for the sessions on September 8th and 22nd, we’ll create little creatures, objects and other virtual beings that co-habit the same shared environment on a single web page.

We’ll use something like GitHub Gists or JSBin to share code snippets, and have a Node.js server pull everyone’s creations into a single canvas. The creations will be able to interact with one another by publishing and subscribing to simple JavaScript-based events… myFrog.listen("rainfall").ribbit();

All shall become clear!

If you are a coder, an artist, or otherwise curious, then do sign up and come along – to both sessions if you can. We’ll post the results online here for all the world to see.

UPDATE…

See the beautiful jungle: jungle.asyncjs.com
Read the write-up: asyncjs.com/the-mighty-jungle/
Grab the code and add a creature: github.com/asyncjs/Javascript-Jungle