@media Ajax
I decided to miss the main @media bash this year, as I have a reasonable generalist overview of trends on the web. However, I’ve a great Ajax/JavaScript-shaped hole in my knowledge so I decided to go to the specialist Ajax bash instead, where a whole host of beautiful people had gathered. I’m glad I did; it was very well organised, and at sometime during the two days, a penny dropped in my head and I began to “get” the Ajax methodology.
I learned
- jQuery is really really cool and really elegant. The decision to base it on css selectors is inspired. I’m genuinely looking forward to using it, and finding excuses to do stuff in JavaScript (which is why so much evil Ajax exists, of course).
- Everyone talks about accessibility and Ajax—which is great—but still no-one really knows how to do it. These best we got was Derek Featherstone vouching for the Gez Lemon/ Steve Faulkner method, which is brilliant but a total hack.
- Stuart Langridge is really funny, and also man enough to publicly reverse a previously-held opinion.
- JavaScript support in IE will get much better when Screaming Monkey is released and it plugs the Mozilla JS engine into Internet Explorer. Or something; it was pretty techie. Anyway, it’s A Good Thing.
- You should never let a non-keynote speaker do a meandering philosophical ramble, even if he did invent Dojo.
- Specialist programming conferences, even @media ones, have a much higher beard count than generalist conferences (and far fewer foxy chicks).
A good couple of days to meet up with friends old and new and learn stuff at the same time.
i love jquery - even a javascriptphobe like me can whip up some super snazzy stuff in a jif (or should that be ajax?). hussah!