Refresh NYC

What: Responsible JavaScript
When: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 7:00 PM
Where: reBar — 147 Front Street, DUMBO

Dynamic Development in Python

This month, Python developer Fire Crow will be covering features of the python language that make it especially powerful for certain projects. This talk will include code samples of key language features, companies using python, and a sample of the frameworks available for web applications.

Additionally, this talk will cover some of the amazing things python is used for and why that makes web applications built in python good for modeling most powerful features python brings to web development.

About Fire Crow

Fire Crow a Web Developer and Unix/Linux server side programmer, with a focus on reusable code bases, framework development, and implementing modular designs. He works mostly in Python and Javascript, with some projects in PHP/MySQL.

More information on his website http://firecrow.com.

JavaScript is such an interesting language isn’t it? If we keep it to the books and have lots of global variables and functions it makes it really easy to write an intelligent JavaScript editor (I’m thinking of Aptana and Eclipse’s native JavaScript Editor). If you’re of the “IDE’s are cool” mindset, these editors are incredibly valuable because they can show you nicely structured outlines of your application — complete with collapsing menus for nested objects.

Where this seems to completely break down is when you start doing something even remotely interesting with JavaScript. For example, if I wrap my application in a self-invoking function — poof! my outline is gone. Heaven forbid I do anything requiring closure.

Do the developers in the audience have their preferred editors? I’ve since just found myself using Textmate for all my JavaScript development as it doesn’t pretend to be anything more than it is (don’t mistake that statement for it being just a text editor though).

What about folks who use other dynamic languages? How do your IDE’s cope with the complexity of giving accurate outlines? Is it really that hard to write an advanced editor for a dynamic language?

Python folks… Ruby folks… I’d love to hear your thoughts.

What: Responsible JavaScript
When: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 7:00 PM
Where: (A location has not been chosen yet.)

Forget what you know about JavaScript… We’ve been told of all its glories and all of its failings. The fact of the matter is that it’s a greatly under-appreciated language with a few well-documented mistakes.

Most of us are quite familiar with best practices in JavaScript programming; the most common of which are to avoid the “bad parts” at all costs. This talk will discuss many of these bad parts in depth and show you ways that you can continue using them in your programs responsibly.

As always, this meeting is free. Be sure to invite some friends.

More information is available on the Meetup event page:
http://www.meetup.com/refreshnyc/calendar/12356012/

Update

For those interested (or for those who missed it) you can find the slides on Slideshare.

Happy 2010 everyone.

After our successful Pilot Meeting, I’d like to kick off the new year with the latest updates.

Meeting Structure

We’ll be having two meetings per month. One meeting will be a casual networking event where we can enjoy some food, drinks and great conversation. No RSVP’s are required, just show up ready to meet and converse some fellow web enthusiasts.

The other meeting will be a standard user group meeting where we’ll have a presentation followed by more networking afterwards.

Location

We’ll be calling reBar home for now. They’ve got a beautiful meeting space as well as a restaurant and bar where we can continue the conversation. It’s super easy to get to (first stop on the F in DUMBO) and the staff are always friendly.

Meeting Times

I’m still working on exact meeting times for us, but as it stands, Tuesdays around 7:00 seem to work for most people. Keep an eye out for an update for the exact time and dates.

Upcoming Presentations

We’ve got two presentations scheduled for January and February.

In January, I’ll be kicking off the show with a talk on Responsible JavaScript. February we’ll be having a talk on some very interesting applications for Python.

If you are interested in giving a presentation let me know.

Just a reminder to those who have bee thinking about attending, we will be having a pilot meeting tomorrow evening.

The plan is to have a nice conversation over some food and drinks and to collect some thoughts on how we can move this group forward in the coming year.

Please make sure to RSVP for the meeting! I look forward to meeting you all.

Meeting Details

• When: Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 7:00pm
• Where: Suspenders Restaurant (111 Broadway at Thames)
• RSVP: Please RSVP so we have a head count.
• Call or TXT: 530-316-4534

I’ll have a printout on the table so everyone knows who to look for.

There are lots of really exciting web/tech events coming up this week. Be sure to mark your calendars, these aren’t to be missed!

I’ve bookmarked these in Delicious for those who are interested. These, and all other relevant events will be tagged as “events“. Just go to: http://delicious.com/refreshnyc/events.

If you know of other events which are happening this week, post it in the comments below and I’ll make sure to update the list.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Future of Web Design, hosted by Carsonified (2 days)

There’s loads going on at this years event. You’ll hear from great speakers, enjoy in depth workshops and make new friends and contacts. It’s a 1 day, 1 track event with a 2nd day of fantastic workshops.

Web 2.0 Expo New York (4 Days)

Web 2.0 Expo, co-produced by O’Reilly Media and TechWeb, showcases the latest Web 2.0 business models, development paradigms and design strategies for the builders of the next-generation Web. This annual multi-track conference brings together people, ideas, connections, contacts, products, and companies to foster stronger Web 2.0 communities. Web 2.0 Expo events occur in San Francisco and New York and feature influential keynotes and speakers, detailed workshops, a Launch Pad start-up program, an Expo show floor, a Web2Open unconference, and rich networking events.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Meetup.com Web Performance Story, hosted by the New York Web Performance Meetup

Meetup.com’s technology team will talk about their attempts to work on web performance, challenges they faced and technologies they used. They promise this to be deep and technical, they will also provide soda and beer.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Opera Tweetup with Håkon Wium Lie

Here is your opportunity to mingle with Opera CTO Hakon Wium Lie (the father of CSS), Opera evangelists and other Opera enthusiasts for the first time in New York. Join us for a tweetup at ‘Disiac Lounge (http://disiacloungenyc.com/) on Wednesday, November 18 from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm.

HTML5 Workshop with Tantek Celik

In the past few years, HTML5 has gone from a WHATWG project to the official W3C draft revision to HTML and has captured the attention of web designers and developers world-wide.

Taught by industry leader and W3C invited expert Tantek Çelik, this introductory workshop will cover everything you need to know to get started with HTML5

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Bootup #4, hosted by bootup.io

IT Expertise and Service in the Cloud, Coupon and Discount Hyper-Local Social Network.

The Bootup Technology Start-up Investor Community puts startups in front of engineers and business professionals to create a forum for analysis, the technical pitch, and team building across disciplines.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Standards.NEXT

On Friday, 20th of November, standards.next will be hosting a free event for web developers and designers focused on CSS. Talks will range from CSS3 features related to color, typography and media, to discussions of Open Web-concepts, current case studies and demos. We’ll also hold brainstorming sessions to discuss and solve shared challenges within our industry.

I want to say thanks for the great response of everyone who have taken the time to send emails, tweets, and messages this way. I can tell already this group is going to a good experience for us all.

Lets keep the momentum going and start thinking about a pilot meeting in December to start things off. All we need is a venue folks. Can anyone make any suggestions?

Expect an announcement to go out early next week so keep an eye out on this site or on the Meetup group!

Friends, I’d like to announce the revival of the Refresh NYC group. Please tell everyone you know about this group so we can make the most of it.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Refresh movement, please read more on the About page and check out the other groups which have come before this one.

For the time being, I think the best approach for managing events, announcements, lists, and the like is our Meetup site.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know. Feel free to reach out to me directly if you would prefer: mikeg at lovemikeg dot com.