ReadWriteHack

JSConf 2011 was packed with cool projects. You can find a collection of slides that have been posted here, and you can find slides from NodeConf here.

I've covered a few of the projects I saw at the conference, but it would take way to many posts to cover everything. I'll leave with this final post looking at just three more projects.

A few different themes emerged over the course of the JSConf this week: that JavaScript is growing up, the need for a JavaScript core, the value of modules over frameworks and the continued debate over native apps vs. Web apps. But the most potent theme, hiding beneath the surface of many talks was made explicit by CoffeeScript creator Jeremy Ashkenas: "JavaScript is too important to be left to the experts."

Too important because JavaScript has become essential to the Web, through AJAX, mobile application development, server side scripting and more. The Web, Ashkenas says, is the most important invention of the past two decades, and JavaScript is a fundamental part of it. By experts, he means the companies and organizations that make browsers and the standards committees that develop language specs.

Mozilla employe and JavaScript creator Brendan Eich is giving a surprise talk at Node.js today on the subject of using Mozilla's Spidermonkey JavaScript engine in Node.js, instead of Google's V8.

The Spidermonkey/Node.js project has been known for a while now.

Waterbear is a Scratch-like visual programming language for JavaScript. It was created by Dethe Elza, who gave a presentation on the project today at JSConf in Portland, OR. Waterbear brings the concepts of kid-friendly, educational programming languages, such as Logo and Scratch, to the modern, browser-oriented computer. Users can create programs by snapping together blocks.

Unlike Scratch, you can view the code generated by Waterbear.

Jo is a JavaScript framework for mobile applications. It's fully compatible with PhoneGap, which it relies on for creating native applications. It's designed to be as lightweight as possible - its minified & gzipped JavaScript is just over 12KB with no dependencies. In addition to mobile Web apps and native apps, Jo can be used to build dashboard widgets.

Joe was built by Dave Balmer, a veteran Yahoo developer now working for HP on WebOS.

I'm at JSConf in Portland, OR today. I just watched a presentation by John Hann from unscriptable making the case for modules instead of frameworks and libraries. Frameworks and libraries add a lot of weight to your applications. Also, they are difficult to migrate away from - creating some lock-in for a developer. Modules are meant to alleviate these problems, while still providing developers with a set of tools to speed-up development.