AngularJS has been a library that I never really saw the point of, back end server languages + the excellent front end frameworks such as jQuery and bootstrap have always delivered far more than even my most demanding corporate clients could want or need,  however while booking my ticket to the jQuery conference 2014 I  noticed that one of the workshops being held beforehand was entitled ‘Diving into AngularJS’  I figured that perhaps I just did not appreciate the framework’s better points and I should man up and learn it, also the fact it was being presented by Peter Bacon Darwin a well known member of the AngularJS world and a published author was not going to hurt

Initially I thought I had made a mistake, there were lots of mistakes in the printed version of the exercises and a distinct lack of structure to the course, then I pulled the stick out my arse and started playing proper attention,  the course was never designed to be completed in one day the material is a full course that you can do at your own leisure with all materials located on https://github.com/petebacondarwin/foodme,  Peter was there to guide you over the tricky humps, answer your questions and WTF moments as well as give you the background reasoning to a lot of the baffling areas of angular,

The day was in microcosm an exact replica of the classic AngularJS learning curve –V and Peter’s presence was the reason for that, hopefully this means I wont hit this save curve on a live project

In additional it provided me with a personal epiphany when it comes to javascript, I have never really enjoyed the asynchronous nature of javascript, it never had the same control that I am used to with things like Java multi-threading or better still Scala’s Actors, but peter took me though the whole thing and introduced me to the https://github.com/kriskowal/q library and its AngularJS derivative $q, I had been using javascript promises the same as everyone else (even if we don’t call them that) but this really opened my eyes on the whole subject 🙂

Frankly put I learnt more than my brain can absorb in a day, very very good value

Sigh, I’m a bit late writing this one up (again) but never mind

On a barmy spring evening Mr white and I potted up to a very trendy part of Old Street to attend the 29th London Node User Group

Held in the Shoreditch village hall (which was far posher than I remember village halls being and with no smell of urine)

This was in the background of Old street which used to be a place you would not venture into without a body guard and an axe but is now Londons start up tech hub

There were 3 talks on the night:

Jeremy Ruston A Tale of Two Hosts: rebooting TiddlyWiki for Node.js and the browser

This talk was done by its creator and such talks are always fascinating, his discussion had a lot of moving from old tech to new with serious and precises technical terms (I had to go look up what transclusion means)

The talk was less about node.js and more a product demo, this was fine as I was really impressed with Tiddlywiki the product, very cutting edge with a lot of CSS3 and HTML5, I learnt about a couple of new HTML5 features I was unaware of as well as lessons on large scale state manipulation or lack of it

The product it’s self looks a boon for academics although less so for corporations due to their habit of living on old browsers.

It runs in both the browser as well as node.js and its ability to create multiple entries or wikis at will puts corporate wikis to shame.

Simon McManusHome Automation With Javascript

The home automation talk was an easy going change from its hard core predecessor, but Mr McManusHome was just a tad rushed and garbled (sounds like he has been busy at work)

It was interesting to see the challenges that even an obviously clever person has in trying to glue all the various home automation standards into something you can use for what you want

It was captivated seeing how hard he had to work to get even simple things working, it does however seem that there are companies out there that are fighting the good fight.

In the end I felt dumb but exhilarated and galvanised to learn more

Ismael Celis Streaming downloads proxy service with Node.js

This talk rounded up the night and concentrated on the bootic eCommerce application.

While not as fun as the other presentations, it was pure practical demonstration, strongly focused on node.js and shared a lot of lessons learnt and good tips and tricks, well presented especially considering that English does not seem to be Mr Celis first language

Roundup

The atmosphere between and after the talks was really welcoming and very friendly compared to something like a Java user group (they even do free training nights), I suspect this was because most people were from start-ups rather than the serious corporate landscape, indeed my references to using various technologies inside the corporates was treated with a bit of horror as if I was suggesting selling out to the forces of evil, a strange but refreshing attitude and a good U.G. all round.