03 October 2017

[katjad]

Hello All,

Apologies that I have not written any summaries for the last few sessions! I don't really have a good excuse for that. There are a few factors that might have been contributing:

• The team we had working on the app has pretty much dissolved. For very good reasons, really, people have been finding jobs! Congratulations @dandel10n @GenesisSelf @wingedeel. And I've heard from somebody else.. but don't know yet if they have accepted the job :)
• We've been a bit busy with organising the JS day, trying to find a new place for the hack night (and interim spaces) and making new plans for CodeHub; at this point, welcome @smallhadroncollider to the CodeHub organising team and also JS101!

But now that I am writing, I feel there is actually quite a lot to mention!

1. Current format for JS101: JavaScript topics
Even before the app team crumbled a bit, we thought it might be good to have some topics to focus on each session, so to have some structure in place. The topics are mentioned on the Meetup pages but in case you haven't been on there, here's a list that I put together with @smallhadroncollider

JS101 Topics
19 September - Scope
03 October - Events / Async
17 October - Promises
31 October - Functional / ES6
14 November - ES6 / Modules / Webpack / Babel
28 November - How to structure code

So we have worked through Scope and Events / Async so far - we read through material and at JS101 went through some examples on the whiteboard mainly

Scope (29 Sep)
Links to read through: https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS/tree/master/scope%20%26%20closures Ch. 1-3
https://developer.telerik.com/topics/web-development/understanding-scope-in-javascript/

Events - Async (Callbacks) (3 Oct)
I walked through some concepts and examples which I've now put together here http://slides.com/katjadurrani/event-async#/ (might contain the most crowded slide you've ever seen) and there's some very basic examples we looked at here https://github.com/katjad/event-async-examples
Links to read through:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/JavaScript/Building_blocks/Events
https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS/blob/master/async%20%26%20performance/ch1.md
https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS/blob/master/async%20%26%20performance/ch2.md
Great video explaining the event loop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGhZQkoFbQ

2. App and website
We have a functioning app, now also with GitHub authentication! https://resources.javascript101.co.uk/ That is the good news. :D The bad news: The usability is not very good. Also, looking at the codebase: It is lacking documentation, is generally a bit difficult to find your way into, and it contains a monster component. And it doesn't have a proper database at the moment. (What I do like very much is that it does currently have HMR enabled again - on my auth branch at least, which I hope I can make the master soon)

Still, it feels to me a milestone is reached. I mean, we've basically done most tasks that we set ourselves in the Agile sessions.. So that was a good exercise. In principle, we could still carry on, including the Agile sessions as was the plan, but it's difficult during JS101, also people starting new jobs won'te be able to put that much effort in. I also don't blame anybody who finds it difficult to work their way in after a break.

But here's the thing. I for one am going to keep working on the app, at least till Christmas. (It will be my hack night project). And I am happy about any help, especially also with UI / design (@claudialoch, @trianah, @dandel10n ? ). I am for a while not going to work on more functionality, but want to look at:

• Refactoring -> more smaller components and better actions (replace XHR!)
• Documentation
• Writing tests

Not sure how far I'll get ;), we'll see.. As I said, any help appreciated!

I would very much also like to update the website, though I am not sure how much time and effort I can dedicate to it. It would probably be more the content for the moment.

3. Time to say Good-Bye? - and/or say Hello
We have often had people asking if we could not do a thing like JS101 in the evening. And maybe it is time to do that. We've also thought we could widen the scope and make it about web dev in general, as a lot of people who came to JS101 were interested in other web dev topics too. We could for example include sessions on Laravel.

We could take what we have learned from JS101 and apply it to.. Web dev 101?

Of course, JS101 in the mornings could carry on, too. [edit: had written some more here, but taken it out now because I didn't like the way I wrote it. Anyway, It would be good to hear opinions on move to the evenings, and if people would still like the morning sessions to carry on ]

More CodeHub events
In case you're interested. Some plans we have:

• Do an evening workshop at least every 2 months (possibly another Git - not me running it! - in November)
• Christmas party?/ (possibly at Old Market Assembly)
• Evening web dev group, as mentioned above
• Create 'sponsorship' packages and find more sponsors!

That's it for now. On Tuesday we are going to talk about Promises, any volunteers? (very short notice, I know!)

@CodeHubOrg/js2017