What to expect at OpenJS World 2020

OpenJS World, the annual conference event from the OpenJS Foundation, goes virtual this year, bringing together leaders, contributors and members of the JavaScript and web development world for two days of talks and workshops.

As usual, NearForm will be in attendance to share insights with and learn from the community, with Matteo Collina, James Snell and Anna Henningsen speaking at the event. Below, the speakers share their thoughts on the upcoming event, as well as the details of their sessions.

Matteo: OpenJS World started as Node.js Interactive in 2015, and I have attended every year. I would not miss an edition to connect with the community. I’ve made great connections there that helped me reach my goals!

James: OpenJS World is an opportunity to connect with the ecosystem around Node.js and JavaScript. For myself, the highlight of the Node+Js Interactive events -- from which OpenJS World has emerged -- has always been the additional Collaborator Summit event.

I’m going to tell the story of Fastify and how we had a community of maintainers before writing a single line of code. I’m so excited to share this, as I think it could help and inspire a lot of other maintainers and innovators.

Promises! In the workshop, attendees will take a crash course in all the ways developers use Promises in JavaScript incorrectly and how to use them the right way.

Rich and I will discuss the past and present of Node.js, and share some thoughts on what could have been better and what we could still improve when it comes to how we do Node.js core development. We’ll also talk about what the future relationship of Node.js and Deno might look like.

Matteo: Sustainability of Open Source is one of the greatest topics of this decade. In my talk, I’m going to present a co-ownership model where the sheer cost of maintaining a framework is shared between all its users.

Anna: Aside from being passionate about Node.js core development, I’m also enjoying the opportunity to discuss what choices Node.js has made as a large-scale open source project and how those have worked out for us.

James: There is so little information out there about how to use Promises correctly and so many examples of them being used in ways that kill performance or introduce bugs into a system. This workshop is a step towards getting the right information out there about the correct way of using Promises.

Matteo: A lot has been written on sustainable Open Source, and a quick search online would find a lot of articles on the topic. This Leadership and Governance guide is a good intro on OSS governance models. My talk will also dig deep into why the governance model impacts the sustainability of an OSS project.

Tuesday, June 23, 11:50 - 12:20 pm CDT

Synopsis: You are watching from the sides, dreaming about building the next (popular?) framework or library in your field. You dream about presenting your creation in front of hundreds of people at OpenJS World. You believe in yourself, and suddenly you have thousands of downloads per month and developers relying on you to maintain your library. You think you’ve made it. Instead, it is only the beginning.

What makes an Open Source library or framework successful? Does something become popular because it’s technologically superior or shows a clear innovation path? A single maintainer can only do so much, dividing their time between adding new features, fixing bugs and updating dependencies. Maintaining a successful Open Source project is a big burden for a single individual, often working on their own time. You need something else — you need a community.

Wednesday, June 24, 11:30 - 1:20 pm CDT

Synopsis: At the 2019 Node+JS Interactive in Montreal, James presented a talk discussing the various ways people completely abuse Promises in Node.js. The reaction to that talk was powerful and we received several requests to expand on the topic and to help developers learn to do the right thing with regards to Promises. In this workshop, Matteo and James will do exactly that. Through a series of hands-on exercises and puzzles, developers will learn the ins and outs of developing with Promises in Node.js, learning everything they should do, and most importantly what they shouldn't do, in order to maximize the effectiveness of their code and avoid common performance pitfalls.

Wednesday, June 24, 12:50 - 1:20 pm CDT

Synopsis: Two of the most active current maintainers of Node.js provide a candid discussion of where they think current Node.js internal implementations fall short and what might be done about the issues. While some topics may seem esoteric at first, every Node.js developer will find points that affect them. Would Node.js developers benefit from a single internal HTTP client instead of different ones for different HTTP versions? Was it a mistake to include the assert module? How can we make Node.js more secure?

OpenJS World 2020 is now a free Virtual Experience, happening June 23 – 24 on the US Central Time Zone. Register your place today!