Listen and talk: Announcement HolyJS 2018 Moscow



    What is important at the conferences - reports or communication? The first option also has its supporters (“information on the case is more important than talking”), and from the second (“you can learn at home, but talking to experts is worth a lot”).

    November 24-25, we will hold a conference in JavaScript for JavaScript developers HolyJS 2018 Moscow , and we believe that it is well suited to both report connoisseurs and supporters of communication. Why? Wrote under the cut and the first component, and the second.

    Program


    A few months before the conference, the complete list of reports is not yet known, but the principles by which the Program Committee prepares it are already known. Therefore, you can answer the following questions:

    I have not been to HolyJS before - what is the format?

    HolyJS has long been positioned as “the only JavaScript conference in Russia”. We really wanted to make a conference dedicated only to JavaScript, but JavaScript does not live in a spherical vacuum, but actively interacts with a huge amount of technology - starting with HTML / CSS and C ++, ending with unusual things like Johnny-Five(each conference speakers surprised us with something amazing new). This and some other points led us to redefine the positioning. We realized that we have been doing a conference for a long time not only about JS, but about everything that is interesting to JS developers, from the browser to IoT. Therefore, I would like to say that now we are “Conference for JavaScript developers”.

    How and what will it affect?

    We hope that the main direction of HolyJS will become more transparent for the audience.
    But the main thing remains the same: we will continue to look for the same deep and interesting reports, as before , just now we will be less embarrassed to look into areas adjacent to JS.

    And what exactly will be this time?

    It is always interesting to listen (and ask) to people who have developed the tools that you use. Therefore, now we are especially interested in the speeches of speakers involved in tools and libraries widely used in the frontend. The program committee is negotiating with them, and we can already present the first stars who will read the report at the next conference.

    We will have Michel Weststrate - the creator of the MobX library , which is increasingly confident about Redux. MobX has more than 16,000 stars on GitHub , Michel has thousands of followers on Twitter - a significant speaker for the JS community.



    Another speaker, Pavel Chertorogov , created the graphql-compose toolthat helps work with GraphQL on Node.js. A year ago, Pavel was already speaking with us, talking about GraphQL as a whole (you can watch the video ), and now in his new report we will talk about building a GraphQL server on Node.



    And also Kirill Cherkashin ( z6Dabrata ), who is now working in Firebase (so he is involved in the toolkit already at the industrial level) , will speak . On the previous HolyJS, many liked his report “Working with abstract syntax trees of JavaScript”. We have not yet posted the video recordings of the last conference in the public domain, but especially for you we give a link to this report - you can be sure that you should listen to Kirill's speech with new material!

    David Khourshid- a person with a "very green githab", and in his account you may be familiar with, for example, react-redux-forms and xstate repositories . The second is dedicated to the state machines, and David as a speaker is now interested in this topic. However, given the seriousness of the topic, it is not worth waiting for the bestial seriousness in the intonation of the report - David’s irony is also close:



    Finally, Ari Lerner is known as the author of one of the main books on Angular-development: ng-book . At the same time, his interests are not limited to Angular, and the report will be on a completely different topic: Ari will talk about cross-platform mobile development with the help of Flutter and Dart, which Google now rely on. But if you have Angular questions for him, there will be an opportunity to ask them at the conference.

    While the full list of speakers has not yet been formed, and the Program Committee is working on it with might and main, we decided to ask all participants the question “what report would you like to see in the HolyJS program?” This does not mean that something from the list will be realized - but It helps to understand what people are working on the program and in what direction it leads. The answers were:

    Dmitry Makhnev (Classmates): I would like Victor to make a report based on his articles Learnable Programming and Up and Down on the Ladder of Abstraction . These texts - dump head.

    Evgeniy Kot (Wrike): I am interested in things at the junction of technologies.

    Vadim Gorbachev (OpenWay): I would probably want deno to be presented not at JSConf, but at Holi. That is, I want HolyJS to be a platform where a grandiose product was first presented.

    Katerina Pavlenko(Tinkoff.ru): I would like to see, in addition to standard reports (lecture and / or live coding), a new speech format, possibly involving the public in the work. For example, puzzlers, when the hall shows intricate puzzles, and viewers vote for the answers.

    Dmitry : PC participant Misha Poluboyarinov does not participate in today's video call, but then I’ll say for him that he would like to see the speaker of Clojure author Richard Hickey (here is an example of his report).


    Pictured: Program Committee at the previous HolyJS

    Communication


    It is clear that at the conference there are many interesting specialists around (both speakers and spectators), communication with which is very fascinating. But it is not always clear who, how and what to talk about. And here the conference seeks to help by offering specific formats.

    One of the recognizable features of HolyJS is the discussion areas, where each speaker after his report answers questions. It turns out not just a standard “Q & A” for ten minutes, but something much more. When there is no hurry, there is no fear to detain a whole room of people with a stupid question, and a flipchart and a marker are at hand, you can safely embark on lively discussions - sometimes going far away from the original topic of the report.

    At the last HolyJS in St. Petersburg, we tried out a new format of BoF-sessions: “round tables” with discussions of vital issues, where speakers and all interested viewers participate. In St. Petersburg, such sessions were lively and intense, unless at times they fell offtopic (but who is insured from this :))

    And at the end of the first day of the conference, a party takes place. If you are interested in talking with other conference participants, but it’s embarrassing to approach people during breaks, you have the right conditions at the party: no one is in a hurry, playing music, drinks and snacks at the bar.

    And if it is not clear what to start a conversation with a new acquaintance, it helps that the PC organizes a move every time. At the previous HolyJS, it was “TCXX”: viewers could send their suggestions for improving the language, from which they would choose the most-most and award prizes. And it was both a reason to have fun, and a reason to think seriously about "what I lack in JS and whether it is worth bringing it to TC39." Dmitry Makhnev commented:

    “In my opinion, the conference brings together a huge number of practicing engineers who can give very good feedback on the language. They can offer really important things that are not obvious to people sitting on committees. According to the information we have (and by the specifications), it is clear that in TC39 many theorize.

    In this case, the developer usually has something in his heart, but he thinks “this is my personal problem”. Psychologically difficult to sit down and write a proposal. Therefore, I want to help overcome this. Ideally, I would like the conference to eventually give rise to a massively approved and already quite realistic proposal. I would like to bring some valuable ideas from our community through good selection. Therefore, I am in favor of this initiative being continued. At the same time, in the form of its holding there is something to work on, the next time it all may look different. ”

    Even if the TCXX on the new HolyJS does not continue, there surely will be something else. The program committee works hard to make every minute interesting at the conference.


    In the photo: BoF-session "Client-side optimization" on the previous HolyJS

    Call for Papers


    Finally, there is another important point, which is about getting knowledge and about live communication at the same time. Since the program is in the process of formation, now is a great time to submit your application for a report.

    Why is it about getting knowledge, if in this case you give them to others? Because practice shows: a great way to really understand the seemingly familiar topic is to try to tell about it. You accept the knowledge in the report, a sudden clarification emerges, you start to deal with them, and in the end it all ends with the feeling “this is how it all turns out.”

    And why about live communication? Partly because of the same discussion zones: there you will see how people with completely different user profiles look at the topic of your report from unexpected sides. And partly because of access to the speaker room, where there is also a lot of communication: there it is easy and spontaneous, without a predetermined topic and a strict circle of participants, and even it is easy for an introvert to connect to an ongoing dialogue.

    If the words above about “deep reports” scare you from submitting an application, do not be timid. Yes, we do not take everything into the program, and we need high-quality materials, but the PC just helps to improve them. Therefore, if you can tell something useful for JS-developers, but you are afraid of “whether it will work out well enough” - submit an application , and then we'll figure it out.


    In the photo: PC participant Eugene Cat sees you as a potential speaker.

    Tickets


    Here compared with previous HolyJS there are changes. Previously, the ticket price was the same for everyone. But we often heard from viewers that the same amount is felt quite differently in different situations: one thing is when a large company allocates it for the development of its employee, and another is when a person goes "for his". A separate story - when a capable student has already grown to the level of conference reports, but has not yet reached seniors' salaries.

    Therefore, we decided to introduce different categories. First, now prices differ for large companies, small businesses and for those to whom the employer does not compensate for attending the conference. The main burden is placed on the company, and it becomes a bit easier for the “loners”.

    Secondly, there was a discount for those who were already at HolyJS. It turns out that if you went to the conference earlier, then you invested in the future in this way too!

    And thirdly, a separate discount (as much as 50% compared to the “for self-buying ticket” prices) is intended for those who study at the university or teach.

    With all these changes, another aspect remained unchanged: the closer to the conference, the higher the price becomes. So those who buy tickets before anyone will save the most.

    If you already understand that you want to be at the conference with us - on the siteticket sales are already open. And also there will gradually appear descriptions of reports and new speakers accepted into the program. In order not to miss the news, you can subscribe to the conference pages in social networks - we publish updates there.

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