Frontend DEV Conf’13: Prospects of Frontend

The first conference for frontend developers was held on April 20, 2013 in Minsk. Two attendees from Elinext  shared their experiences of taking part in the event

April 22, 2013. The first and the largest conference for frontend developers Frontend DEV Conf ’13 was held on April 20, 2013 in Minsk, Belarus. As a platform for the exchange of knowledge and experience, the event gathered more than 250 participants. Speakers came from 7 countries. The conference was basically divided into two streams: presentations and workshops. Representatives of Elinext Group—Gennady Sergeenko, Project Manager, and Alexey Shliakhouski, IT Services Director—were among the attendees.

As it comes from the name, the main focus of the conference was on frontend development techniques and technologies. The issues covered included the following: frontend development tools and patterns, MV* frameworks, CSS preprocessors, large scale application development, usability, and UX design. Notable speakers and experts shared their practical experience with good examples ranging from code quality and types of frameworks to software architecture and design patterns. Informal communication between participants contributed to the friendly atmosphere of the affair.

Traditional frontend programming with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript has significantly changed over the recent years. JS has now evolved into much more than client-side scripting with jQuery, Prototype, and the likes. It is now also used in the backend. “I liked the presentation of Jakob Mattsson from LeanMachine AB, Sweden. Mr. Mattson spoke about the advantages of using Node.js platform for server-side development. That was really engaging,” said Gennady Sergeenko, PM and certified frontend developer.

“Next, I’d like to point out the speech of Marco Cedaro from Shazam Entertainment, UK. Mr. Cedaro talked about bad practices in frontend development and highlighted the threats of bad code writing. At the same time, he stressed the necessity to be aimed at creating clean and maintainable code.”

Gennady also appreciated the presentation of Denis Mishunov from Fastname.no, Norway. “Mr. Mishunov shared his valuable experience and views on usability from the standpoints of geometry, psychology, and neurobiology. He also outlined some essential skills that one requires in order to be successful as a frontend web developer nowadays.”

“Further, I would like to note the presentations of Dmitry Petrov from Skype Russia about efficient management of asynchronous code in JavaScript, and Oleg Podsechin from StartHQ, Finland, about AngularJS framework. Here I’d like to say that at Elinext Group we have used AngularJS in our proprietary Helpdesk system,” said Sergeenko.

“I agree with Gennady. In fact, the conference was a great thing for frontend developers and IT specialists. Frontend development is getting more and more popular, but, of course, it requires dedication and hard work to become a professional in this field. It was quite exciting to see and hear where frontend dev is going to head in the next few years,” added Alexey Shliakhouski.

Elinext’s representatives’ report on the Frontend DEV Conf’14 find by the link.