Building Bots with the Web Speech API

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

We're entering a promising new era of computing.

The advance of machine learning and artificial intelligence is reviving interest in conversational interfaces. This creates the potential for conversation as the new mode of interaction with technology.

The big problem is recognizing spoken input has been mostly solved, but a new challenge has arisen: how to build a user experience that's modelled after natural human conversation.

This talk outlines the basic mechanics of conversation, introduces core principles to design by, and presents you with a practical UI to start creating conversational experiences that engage, delight, and truly help your users. We'll also be building a voice enabled bot using JavaScript!

Alex Lakatos

Alex Lakatos is a JavaScript Developer Advocate for Nexmo.

In his spare time he volunteers at Mozilla as a Tech Speaker and a Reps Mentor.

JavaScript developer building on the open web, he has been pushing its boundaries every day. You can check out his github profile or get in touch on twitter. When he's not programming in London, he likes to travel the world, so it's likely you'll bump into him in an airport lounge.

Node Application Performance

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

We all know the benefits performance has on our users, but what are some practical ways we can improve application performance?

In this talk, we will focus on improving performance, as well as the different tactics on how to decrease cold starts for your serverless containers.

We'll look at improving TTFB (time to first byte) responses from your express servers, and much more!

Josh Ghent

By day, Josh is a software developer working for CloudCall. By night, he plugs away on his blog and open source projects.

He also enjoys Formula 1, learning Korean, and writing bios in the third person.

WarriorJS Arena!

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Note that this event was cancelled due to attendance concerns. It will be rescheduled!

Bring your laptop!

This month we will be running a fun and collaborative practical session with WarriorJS.

An exciting game of programming and Artificial Intelligence

WarriorJS is a coding challenge structured around the concept of a dungeon crawler game where the programmer plays a warrior attempting to solve challenges in each level.

Players will to take turns in each attempt at solving the current level in Randori Kata style, with teams of up to 4 people and one laptop rotating through the driver seat.

We hope you enjoy this chance to code purely for fun (sorry, no prizes!)

David Wood

Dave is a Software Developer at nearForm, and an organiser of NottsJS.

Use more Node.js

Saving the World with JSON Schema!

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

This month's speaker is Rob from opendataservices.coop, a tech cooperative which helps people and organisations publish and use open data in a variety of fields from international development, government procurement, to philanthropy.

The goal is to help organisations have an impact on the world - to make taxes go further, to stop corruption, increase the effectiveness of aid, and to help make sure that charity money goes where it's needed most.

Underpinning all of this JSON Schema (and some XML Schema, if you dig around the back of the closet).

In this talk we'll hear from Rob about how cooperatives are awesome, what open data is, and why it's such a good thing. We will see some examples of where standardised open data has improved lives, and learn about the open data of Nottingham.

Rob Redpath

Rob is passionate about open data and how the world can benefit from sharing more.

Rob also likes bikes and taking lots of notes!

Lightning Talks!

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Come along this May to see Lightning Talks from members of the community! We welcome talk proposals beforehand, which we'll gladly assist with, or come along on the day and put forward a talk!

Been playing with a new package? Found it useful? Come talk!

Solved a deployment issue with TravisCI? Would like to share it? Come talk!

Would like to start using something that you've not had time to look into? Give it some research and come talk about it!

Anything around JavaScript that you'd like to speak about for between 5 to 15 minutes is welcome! We'll hold 5 mins after each talk for questions, and then move on to the next one.

Post your lightning talk idea on the issues list and we'll get you scheduled in https://github.com/nottsjs/speakers/issues/45

See you there!

Why would I ever Elm

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

...it would be nice to have one who questioned their own thoughts
- Joshua Hawxwell

This month we are proud to present Josh Hawxwell with a talk on something he is very passionate about: functional programming!

We'll take a look at some of the many things that the term "functional programming" can mean, and to what degree that applies to JavaScript. Then we'll look at how these ideas (which are present in Elm) allow us to easily write safe front-end applications, with comparisons to other frameworks and packages such as React and Redux.

After the talk we'll have a workshop session where attendees will be divided into two groups of AngularJS and React, and discuss the positives and negatives between re-implementations of a simple Elm app in either framework.

We hope to see you there!

Joshua Hawxwell

Josh is an eccentric developer living in Nottingham with a background in mathematics and computing. He has a keen interest in many languages including Go, Elm and Ruby, but prefers to kick back with .NET in his day job.

Josh can usually be found creating small apps and tools for various personal interests such as media controls and photography - he never fails to surprise his followers on Flickr.

Umbraco CMS + Lean Coffee + Cool Wall

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Join us for an action packed month as we feature a talk on Umbraco CMS, a Lean Coffee, and we see 2018's first edition of the Cool Wall!

We will hear from Paul about how to build websites on the Umbraco framework in headless mode. Paul's a great speaker with extensive experience of content management systems and Umbraco. Through this talk, you can expect to take away the skills and knowledge to get to grips quickly with Umbraco's headless mode in a familiar React setting.

We'll also present an interactive Lean Coffee session where we aim to find out which technologies, speakers and workshops YOU would like to see at NottsJS in 2018.

The ever-popular Cool Wall will see a return for 2018, where we will get the chance to rate the current tech offerings in the form of pseudo-representative fashion labels related to unspecified yet approximate temperature guides - "coolness".

See you there!

Paul Seal

Paul is a .NET Web Developer from Derby, specialising in building Content Management System (CMS) websites using MVC with Umbraco as a framework. Paul is passionate about web development and programming as a whole, apart from when he's with his wife and son; if he's not writing code, he's thinking about it or listening to a podcast about it.

Node JS in the AWS Cloud

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Due to unforeseeable problems, we have had to cancel the Amazon Alexa talk by David Low, and are replacing it with another talk about Node JS in the Cloud. We are looking to reschedule the Amazon Alexa talk for January.

During this session we will aim to build a server-less RESTful API based upon Amazon's AWS cloud technologies.

This is intended as a high-level hands-on session, where you can get exposure to a wide number of intersecting technologies, giving us the opportunity to do a deep dive on each individual component in future sessions.

In this session we will use: Node JS, Lambda, API Gateway, IAM Security & Document DB.

These will be included into a Blue Peter style "here's one I made earlier" React Website to show off the capabilities.

If you are planning on joining in then please register for an Amazon AWS account BEFORE the event. Amazon offer a 12 month free tier which will cover your needs, but you will need to supply payment details.

Chris Kemp

Chris is one of the Organisers at NottsJS with many years of experience in IT across a large number of sectors. He currently works as a Software Contractor developing software for Fire & Rescue Services.

Being Asynchronous

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Dot catch! Dot catch!
- David Wood

Many of us know about the benefits of offloading concurrent I/O operations through the use of callbacks, libraries such as async and bluebird, or using the new Promise support in browsers and Node.js. But, do you know how these work, and when you should use them?

In this talk we will review the benefits, pitfalls, and ways to implement concurrent JavaScript code in Node.js and the browser. We'll look at the support for async/await, how this differs from callbacks and asynchronous libraries, and take a brief look at how these have been implemented to gain a better understanding of what's going on under the hood.

At the end of this talk you will be able to make more informed decisions about the use of synchronous API methods such as readFileSync, choosing to listen to error events, and why wrapping function calls in try..catch may or may not be useful.

David Wood

Dave is a Contract Software Developer currently working at nearForm. Specialising in Node.js, Dave is working hard to deliver ambitious and complicated systems in JavaScript. Being a former Esendex Developer, he has strong opinions on TDD, DDD and clean code.

In 2016 Dave helped write Hackbot and the Hack24-API for use at various hack events, and spends his free time dabbling in many unfinished projects. He is an advocate for TypeScript, prefers to avoid .NET (at last), and recently converted to veganism to help save the world from self destruction.

Hands on with React.Native

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Is this thing on?
- Chris Kemp

Come see how you can make mobile apps with javascript using React.Native, facebook's framework for building mobile apps.

This will be a hands-on workshop, where Windows users can create an Android App, and Mac users get to choose Android or iPhone.

https://facebook.github.io/react-native/

You will need Android studio or xcode installed to get the simulators up and running.

Chris Kemp

Chris is one of the Organisers at NottsJS with many years of experience in IT across a large number of sectors. He currently works as a Software Contractor developing software for Fire & Rescue Services.

Machine Learning for Muggles

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Please join NottsJS and Martin Kearn for "Machine Learning for Muggles".

Artificial Intelligence is the latest hotness. Machine Learning sits behind artificial intelligence and on the surface it may seem like a deeply technical, scientific topic. We are here to tell you that it is more accessible than you think. We'll look at some of the basics around the Azure Machine Learning service. We'll also look some of the Microsoft Cognitive Services APIs which make it very easy to implement artificial intelligence ‘smarts' into your application with simple, standard REST calls via any programming language or platform, including JavaScript.

Martin Kearn

Martin is an evangelist at Microsoft. He is into Web, Cognitive, Office, Windows and Azure, and is based near Birmingham, UK

Chat Bots

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Join us with our guest speaker Manthan Dave with his talk: "Up and running with chat bots: A journey from being a noob to being awesome"

The chat bot revolution is upon us and every developer wants to build one. This workshop will take them on an epic journey starting from basics and writing a simple chat bot, all the way to learning advanced concepts.

Ever wondered what goes behind a good chat bot? Do you want to build one? Well this workshop is for you!

Complexity can be diffused as soon as you peek behind the curtain. A chat bot, like a website might look complex from the outside, but the reality is different.

This workshop will be divided into three sections. The first section will cover the basic anatomy of a chat bot. Next, we'll work together to build a chat bot. We'll start simple with a chat bot that'll tell us knock knock and chuck norris jokes. Towards the end of the workshop, we'll go over some advanced concepts that can help us scale our chat bot to have more features.

So come! Join us on an awesome journey to talkify our bots!

Manthan Dave

Manthan Dave like drones, robots and tech in general. He make awesome things. Bit by bit.

Manthan is Software Engineer at Capital One UK Software Studio

Firefox Containers, isolating the web whilst hacking web extensions

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Presenting Jonathan Kingston with his talk and workshop: "Firefox Containers, isolating the web whilst hacking web extensions".

Bring your laptops with a copy of Firefox Nightly installed as we will hack away at building your own extensions using bleeding edge features.

Firefox Containers tabs are an experimental platform feature for tab management and isolating browsing to solve security and privacy issues.

With the recent launch of containers to test pilot, I'm going to walk through how they are built. Web Extensions are the new cross browser way of adding features to the browser built entirely from JavaScript and other web technologies. New web extension features were added to Firefox for building our containers experiment that you can use today.

I will cover the basics of building extensions so we can have half the evening on hacking and making extensions.

Image credit: Carolyn Jaeger

Jonathan Kingston

Jonathan is a Front End security developer working on Firefox for Mozilla

Hands on with React

Tuesday, March 14th, 2017

Don't point that thing at me.
- Chris Kemp

React is currently my favourite JavaScript framework, and I used it recently to create the Notts Dev Workshop website. It led me to the realisation that NottsJS really should be showcasing JavaScript based web development. (I know! Really?!)

Most people don't get to try a new technology in their day-to-day job, so they do it in their spare time. These people then don't get to apply what they've learnt to a real-world problem.

So that's exactly what I you will be doing. My plan is to use slave labour to enable you to build our website.

I will be acting as your customer and will be signing off your final work, so expect me to try to give you a live example of what it means to use this technology in a real setting.

So please join us in building a real-world react website.

Chris Kemp

Chris is one of the organisers at NottsJS and finds himself without any better offers on Valentine's day.

Elm

Tuesday, January 10th, 2017

elm. A delightful language for reliable webapps.
- elm-lang.org

Elm is a domain-specific, purely functional programming language used for declaratively creating client-side web apps which compile to JavaScript.

In this talk you'll be shown The Elm Architecture, a nestable pattern for building applications, and Elm's full type inference system that helps prevent users from running into errors.

We'll look at how Elm handles HTTP requests and websockets, how it handles uncertainty, the use of partial function application for reusable views, interaction with JS libraries, and how data immutability gives you undo/redo for only a few lines of code.

Will White

Will read about Elm in late 2015, and has been using it for the last six months or so. Before then he was using React/Redux and vanilla JS.

Will has been working on a donations application that will build wealth redistribution into everyday transactions. As far as he knows, Helpfreely have made the most progress in the donate-while-you-shop space. Will hopes to be working with them soon.

Will also helps to administer the Nottingham chapter of Free Code Camp, the free online course where members learn to code and help nonprofits.

#NottTechParty - Christmas Party 2016

Thursday, December 8th, 2016

Nottingham's biggest and brightest tech events are coming together to celebrate the stellar growth of the community by throwing another awesome Christmas party.

We're taking over the National Videogame Arcade, with full access to all the games and exhibits, an organised games tournament with pizza and drinks.

Tickets are just £5! The price of your ticket includes full access to the National Videogame Arcade, the games tournament and pizza.

First tickets released this Friday 11th November at midday - Buy your ticket now!

Javascript Cool Wall

Tuesday, November 8th, 2016

"You're using <insert_old_framework>? That's so 2015. You need to use <insert_new_framework>!"
- Javascript Developers

With something that is approaching attention deficit disorder there's new JavaScript frameworks emerging weekly. Even the godfather of modern JS development, jQuery, has been knocked from its perch and is considered passé.

So what do we do now? How do we leverage the good tech, while avoiding the cargo cults?

This month we're going for something completely new. Enter The Cool Wall. A segment that will prove so popular that Jeremy Clarkson will invent Time Travel to steal it from us and make into a popular segment on Top Gear.

This month's session will be a group discussion piece where we talk about the state of modern JavaScript development and our place in this world.

Exploring Progressive Web Apps

Tuesday, October 11th, 2016

"The application cache is a douchebag"
- Jake Archibald

Web apps can be pretty cool, but we could be making them even cooler. Browsers are leveling up by adding functionality to enable a user experience akin to using a native mobile application.

Enter the new buzz-phrase of the moment… Progressive Web Apps!

This talk aims to share knowledge gained from Dan's time at FullStack 2016 conference, and the lessons learned from implementing the features into real web applications. The goal is to provide more than just a high level overview; you should be able to walk away confident that you can implement these features into your own web apps straight away.

You'll find out why you should care, what's available, see a demo and see what features are offered in browsers.

Dan Ian Shea

Dan Shea is a Senior Software Developer at UNiDAYS.

Professionally he concentrates on web apps and web services leveraging .NET technologies. In his own time he likes to gain hipster dev cred by hacking away with Node.js and Angular using an ancient Linux laptop. When the moment strikes, he likes to build crappy robots and make even crappier games.

Realtime Apps with Node.js and RethinkDB

Tuesday, September 13th, 2016

In today's online world, user experience is key. Users expect slick interfaces that are intuitive, informative and engaging. More and more, building apps that update the user in Realtime are becoming an essential part of this experience - and we can see this every day with things like Google Docs, Facebook Notifications, Slack and BBC Live Text.

RethinkDB is a fully featured, opensource, NoSQL database designed to make developing for the Realtime Web easy. We'll talk about changefeeds, clustering and how combining with Node.js can help you avoid some of the pitfalls of building rich, engaging, Realtime Apps to scale and across multiple platforms.

By the end of this talk you'll be ready to go back and create your first Realtime App with RethinkDB and Node.js.

Matt Collins

Before joining IBM Cloud Data Services Matt was the Head of the Development team at Web.com UK, overseeing the development of a range of web services with PHP, Node.JS, Cloudant, Amazon Redshift and Redis. Most of his experience is in creating whitelabel search, presence and CRM products designed to be used at scale by third parties.

Matt has a particular interest in anything to do with realtime apps and football - currently looking for an excuse to combine the two!