PromoteJS, Sustainability in Computer Science, and Deep Honesty - JSConf EU 2010 Keynote
This talk was presented at JSConf EU 2010, video is provided, but please also read the transcript.
We are an interesting lot when you look at the community as a whole. We are a rag tag group of designers, developers, noobs, and elites. We have a sordid history as one of the greatest technological wars played out across our land and left us in a wasteland of stagnation. The big vendors have looted and plundered our community and we survived it, only to come out stronger and better. Many of our original heroes have been lost to legend, or worse they have been scorned by the dragons they sought to slay. We have seen new leaders rise with vigor and innovation not often seen in other programming communities. We are a community of rejuvenation, of rebuilding, of finding problems and fixing them. We are a community of developers who prefer JS, but use a variety of other languages and tools to accomplish tasks. We are at the point of a renaissance of interest, excitement, and energy and yet I worry. I fear as the drums of war start pounding between browser vendors and the rising tide of interest moves back to JS, what will it do to our community. Will we have built something sustainable or merely yet another flash in the pan technology cult? The new generation of JS, you, me, all of us here, will we learn from our past or are we destined to repeat it in all the wrong ways? Let us not just begin a discussion today, let us trigger action and inspire change! Sustainability should be the most important goal for the technology community at large, and yet no one discusses it. Tonight, we will do more than discuss.
Chapter 1: Education
JS is not a toy language, we believe that otherwise we would not be here. That reality is just now reaching the masses and their first impression of JS is absolutely abysmal. How many of you know what shows up when you search for ”JavaScript”? Look at the links that show up, wikipedia? w3schools? Download Java? Maybe you are saying to yourself that “JavaScript” is too broad a topic and no one in their right mind would search by name for the language that they are trying to learn. Well, lets see, ”JavaScript Array”. The first “quality” link on this page was the MDC documents, link 8 - non-existent. If you want me to take it a step further let’s use an actual query for a first time person, google ”Learn JavaScript”. The first link that actually presents proper JS is John Resig’s at position 8 AND its designed for advanced techniques - the stuff in there would blow the minds right out of anyone just starting out.
This is the first impression of JS by the general masses who are coming to this language and once you see this, you can see why people consider it a “toy language” and understand how so much bad code and disdain can exist for JS. We have hidden the better tutorials, learnings, and documentations away from ourselves AND more to the point, those trying to join the party. New entrants struggle to learn JS, but eventually just adopt what they know from PHP, Java, Perl, Python and Ruby to a close approximation of runnable code that suffices. Then they publish it back out, proud of what they have done, and continue to perpetuate this plague of improper JS coding.
We have failed our fellow designers AND developers in this sense. We have made it almost impossible to learn proper JS, a language with both beauty and warts. Some will say it is not our fault, that browser vendors should provide the API documentation for the implementation or that the standards committee should publish and market it. I am calling bullshit on that. I say that it is up to us to invite, welcome, and most importantly properly educate people looking to learn JS. We, the best and brightest of the field, have an obligation to help those who are trying to learn and understand the complexities of the language. We are the ones that benefit from it most, since those now entering the language will be either extending, morphing, or taking over the very projects we are just now starting. Regardless of library, framework, and even language – if everyone knows how to program proper JS a little better, we all win. Period.
So I challenge you to put down your library or framework preferences and write about some interesting facet about the JS language. Describe how you find the attributes on an object, what the difference between an object and an array is (and how to tell the two a part), anything and everything. If you seek fame and click traffic, write about the entry level stuff. If you seek respect and deep dialogs, write about the difference between implementations and convey the wisdom of when to favor one method over the other. If writing is too time consuming or your muse escapes you, I am announcing today a new campaign, promotejs.com. The goal of PromoteJS is this, through pirate techniques and guerrilla SEO we can change how search engines present answers to common queries about our language. By driving traffic to the proper documentation, we can change search rankings and ensure that people interested in JS are connected with the proper educational resources. First target for promotejs, unseat w3schools.com for standard new JS developer queries with proper MDN documentation. Yes I am saying that we crowd hack google.
We need to be the voice of education for our community. We need to promote the proper way of doing things, instead of just ignoring those that don’t “get it” or watering things down. We need to commit to educating our fellow developers on JS, the language, and in doing so it helps ALL of our frameworks, libraries, meetups, and conferences. promotejs.com is a step in that direction, but by no means the end of the story. The morale of this chapter is, ”The more people that learn proper JS, the better the community will be”.
Chapter 2: Love The Pirate! Damn The Privateers!
The technology field has changed tremendously over the last 20 years and unfortunately it has become focused almost entirely on profiteering and fame. We see companies running technology conferences for profit, selling FUD in metric fuck tons, and making zealots out of noobs. Conmen jump from one “hot tech” to the next in order to be the first to sell this week’s “new deal”. It started with Java and the marketing engine that pushed it into the limelight, shadowing all else, thrived in the .NET ecosphere, and came full circle to the “hackers” with the rise of Rails. The world of software development has seemed to shift from developing to better mankind to a slow, but strong bleeding of developers. This is not the way of sustainable craftsmanship within Computer Science. We must turn this trend back. We, the crowd gathered here and those watching from home, we, the interested, we… JSConf… have a responsibility to ourselves to turn this tide. We are the people who can identify the conmen, the bad actors, the manipulators and we are the ones that have to call them out. Yes, it won’t be pretty and yes they will fight, but fuck it - we are pirates.
From the beginning of JSConf, doing what matters versus doing what makes money has been a core fundamental to all of us involved. We are pirates, we believe deeply in the code that all ships rise with the rising tide and that equality for all makes for a proper ship. We have no problems addressing the issues in our community openly and calling for a change, we must rattle the sabers and shake out those that aren’t committed, and we need to do it now. because I fear to tell you - the establishment is at the door again, ready to make money off our work.
And thus I say, love the pirate, damn the privateers. Privateers for those who don’t know, were people that posed as pirates and would pillage other countries or pirate ships at the behest of a monarchy or government. They were little more than hired guns paid to discredit pirates and break up colonies. Pirates have a code, though it may differ from ship to ship, the general principles of honesty and good faith amongst one another was ever present - this was untrue for the privateers. We need to root out those amongst us who are not here for love and challenge, those that present themselves as great, but provide little to no example or reasoning as to how. Show what you have done and let others determine your value, anything else is privateering. Many people think I am someone important in JavaScript, but they have never once seen or used my code - trust me if they have, they certainly wouldn’t think that. We need to pull down the cult of personality that now permeates our world, it is only a device of the privateer. This is true for not just this band of pirates, but for all software developers out there. We must band together and bring sustainability and sanity back to our profession.
In this, I want to openly applaud Rebecca Murphey for challenging those who champion enterprise jQuery without offering solutions or a frank discussioon of the issues. I want to applaud Zed Shaw for speaking out quite vocally on this very issue in both small and large forums. Our profession needs more champions of character and less bullshit.
And so, I make this call to arms, “Love the Pirates, Damn the Privateers!” with the deepest of sincerity. Luckily, we are starting almost a new at this point. There is no more Ajax Experience, there are few, if any publisher-run conferences in JS. Right now, we have a developer driven development community. Think about that for a second, we have the power. We have a shipful of pirates and a wide open sea before us. Adhere to the code! ARRRRR!!
Chapter 3. Sex, Lies, and Comparing Sizes
JS is not the greatest programming language. No programming language is and none can ever be. They are all a close approximation to something the computer can understand. Every programming language has its benefits and its downfalls, we need to get to the point where we realize this and openly admit the negatives along with the positive. We need to stop presenting each new language or framework with zealotous “THIS IS THE BEST EVER” or coming out with rediculous metrics that “benchmark” two things that are not the same or aren’t actually benchmarking appropriate use. The world is big enough for all programming languages and frameworks, and to be honest - the world needs every programming language. Not more than a year ago, if you told someone that JS would be a serious contender in the server market you would have been laughed at, much like if you had said Ruby 10 years. Times change, needs shift, holding a single weapon makes you easy to combat and a horrible pirate. We are not “JavaScripter”s, not pythonistas, not rubyists - we are programmers. We need to improve ourselves in as many programming languages as we can get our minds around, because every language forces you to view the world in a slightly different way. We need to remove the trolls from our world. We need to stop comparing cocksizes - lets be blatantly honest here, we are all geeks. We are not rockstars, we are not ninjas, luckily though, we are all friends.
Confession time: I am not Mr. JSConf. I am not a leader nor all that good of a programmer. On a good night, I can pull together something but it won’t win any awards or medals. Before I started JSConf, I was completely unknown, like many speakers at JSConf US and EU. After this, I am going to return back to DC sit at my cubicle and work as hard as I can on my full time job. After that I am going to go home and enjoy the company of my family. I bring this up to make one thing very clear. I am nothing special. I am just like everyone of you, and honestly I don’t want to be anything special. This is not false modesty nor self deprecating, this is honesty. And honesty is what we need to be to ourselves and our fellow programmers. I am most worried about this issue above all others I have since discussed. It is pride and selfishness that have turned programming from an art into a cesspool. It has to stop now and we have to be the ones to do it. Why us? Well simply put because we are interesting lot, we come from all different programming languages and educational backgrounds. We have a rare opportunity and the perfect mix of curiousity, intelligence, and experience. We are sitting at an amazing time and we are amazing people - that is why it is up to us to do this.
So let this be the start of something great. We are going to improve our community, we are not going to let it become a ghetto. We are going to do this not for some misguided blind love of a single programming language but because we embrace all programming languages. We have the power and the knowledge to make these changes, to make the programming world a better place and in turn the entire world a better place. We are pirates. We are JSConf!
Thank you.