I've been wanting to write and share my experience of this year's event but a number of things have slowed me down - not least of all that it was Julie's birthday the following Tuesday (the first year her birthday was entirely swallowed by the event).
So now as I sit writing this a full eight days later - sat on the side of the swimming pool as many kids, including my own, do their swimming lessons - I'm trying to collect my thoughts on the day.
MY EBOOK£5 for Working the Command Line
Gain command-line shortcuts and processing techniques, install new tools and diagnose problems, and fully customize your terminal for a better, more powerful workflow.
£5 to own it today
The talks
Every year it's always an amazing experience, hearing the stories of speakers from across different walks of life.
The videos of the talks will be released in the coming weeks and our newsletter will highlight each in turn.
I curated the talks so that up front we had the heavier subjects: diversity from Hellen and data privacy from Chetan.
From the evening before we were talking about JavaScript, React, standards and new developers coming to the industry. We were talking specifically about whether the lessons had been learnt from the past or needed to be repeated.
I'm of the belief (though only in the last decade) that we need to repeat the learnings over and over and over. There's no point when the teaching is done. A fun example of this is seeing the CSS creative coders having their hay-day whilst hearing from the sidelines that the Flash developers have already done a lot of this. It's not new. But if you don't continue to pass down your lessons, the next generations will make the same mistakes and have to learn from scratch.
That's a very long way to say that we've covered the subjects of diversity and privacy before, but new perspectives and different experiences keep the subjects fresh and not a "done" task in the world of the web worker.
The next segment talked about web components from Hannah and about cults from Sèrges.
Hannah talked about her experience bringing web components to a React based team and the process integration both from the software side but also from the team adoption perspective.
Unsurprisingly (see previous notes on curation 😉) Sèrges brilliant (fun and funny) talk about cults dovetailed perfectly into Hannah's talk. She argued that we're all in a cult (to some degree) and touched on the gatekeeping that was also touched on in Helen's talk about team diversity.
Post lunch was time to discuss AI. When friends of mine who know me from outside the web, as about the conference, they understandably assume it's all about AI. It's all we hear about these days.
The two talks were very different perspectives on AI. Asim gave a talk (obscurely but made sense in the end) entitled Don't be an Idiot on how AI can, and is, being used to democratise big decisions, putting much more nuance in the decisions offered to people.
The following was Jess and Eda on AI coding tools and skills. Told from the perspective of a senior and junior and what are the lasting impacts on relying (or being pushed into) AI tools. Very much the argument of shallow learning versus deep (human) learning through experience.
Finally to close the event two talks from the vast spread of experience starting with Surya on the journey of 6 to 16 years old and coding. As our industry continues to exist, it's the young people who will breathe life into it, so I wanted to hear about Surya's experience (even if he is a bit of a black swan - making many of us old hats feel rather like underachievers!).
Then to close, we (FFConf) were lucky to have Sacha Judd (because she resides in New Zealand and it's a long old journey) filling our hearts with the joy of what the Good Internet is. Not just a nostalgic memory but alive today and just as weird as always.
Looking for meaning
The last few years of FFconf have been hard for me to put into context in a world that honestly frightens me. War. Genocide. Famine. Racism. Fascism. Hate. They're alive and well.
Sometimes I think it's ridiculous to put on a web event when things outside are so hard on people. In part it feels like a horrible privilege to be able to sink my head down and listen to these amazing speakers.
On reflection though, I do believe we need to recharge. That we need a little self care if we're going to continue fighting for a fair and equal world, however we achieve it. So maybe that's important for FFConf.
At the top of the event, I asked everyone to try to find one thing that you'll take away. There's so much in a day of talks - it's hard to remember what got you excited in the earlier talks let alone make sweeping changes.
So the (first) one thing I decided to do, relatively simple, was to move to more paid services (I've switched to Kagi already). I've already started paying for my news (404 Media, Novara Media, Guardian and a few others) so I'm continuing to look for these. I also know that this works if you have the funds. For me, it's part of my work, so my business pays for it. I get that it's not as simple for others (that's to say: this is my one thing!).
In my back pocket I'm going to make myself some either silly or partially useful little toys. I may or may not share these; I like that these can be for me and family/friends: low pressure nonsense.
Next
FFConf will return next year, Friday 13 November. I've already got a couple of speakers in mind so I need to approach them with my proposals.
I'll be attending more events myself next year too, including State of the Browser, Web Day Out, (the final) All Day Hey, Beyond Tellerand and WDC (tickets aren't live yet). I'm on the lookout for more events and meet ups in particular (though I have a stinking record of staying at home).
I know this might read as a hopeful note, and I do want it to be, but I also know that I don't 100% buy my written down optimism (I should!). Still, I hope to see you out there.
