Front-end Tools: Sifting Through the Madness

The front-end tools landscape is growing at an exponential pace. Every week there are new plugins, new coding methodologies, new native apps, new JavaScript utilities, new jQuery plugins, new build tools, Grunt plugins, JavaScript libraries and so on. Many help us to solve problems and be more productive.

This talk will give you a quick overview of the kinds of things that get released every week, showing the variety of what’s available. But we shouldn't be discouraged or overwhelmed by the amount we need to keep up with. I'll cover some suggestions for dealing with the madness, and how developers today can benefit greatly from this influx of new stuff, even if they can't keep up with it all.

Links from presentation:

http://www.impressivewebs.com/fitc-2015-slides-links/

Transcript

1. FRONT-END TOOLS: SIFTING THROUGH THE MADNESS
2. ABOUT ME @ImpressiveWebs
3. THE USUAL SUSPECTS ★
5. WHAT WE’LL DISCUSS  What kind of tools are available today  HTML / CSS / Sass  JavaScript / CLI / etc...  What can help us to cope with the influx
6. FRONT-END DEVELOPER?  Feeling overwhelmed?  Not sure if you can keep up?  Any point in trying?
93. IN “- -verbose” MODE
119. THE WEB TOOLS “CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION”
120. IN TWO YEARS, I’VE COME ACROSS...  60+ Front-end Frameworks  150+ JavaScript Libraries  300+ JavaScript Utilities, etc  400+ CSS Tools
121. IN TWO YEARS, I’VE COME ACROSS...  60+ Front-end Frameworks  150+ JavaScript Libraries  300+ JavaScript Utilities, etc  400+ CSS Tools
122. IS IT REALLY SO BAD?  Until about 2009: Not many options  More choice = More quality  Open source  Tools Keep Improving
125. LEARN FROM TOOLS!  View the source on GitHub  What JavaScript patterns?  Any interesting DOM methods?  Any bizarre coding patterns?
127. WHAT PATTERNS?  The Constructor Pattern  The Module Pattern  The Factory Pattern  MV* Patterns
129. INTERESTING DOM TECHNIQUES?  compareDocumentPosition()  elementFromPoint()  replaceData()  setSelectionRange()  or whatever...
133. HOW DO THEY DO IT?
139. THE LESSON?  We might not use a tool  But we can learn from it
140. HOW CAN YOU KEEP UP?  Web Tools Weekly  JavaScript Weekly  Show HN / Hacker Newsletter  Versioning Daily by SitePoint  Front-end Dev Weekly  Web Platform Daily
141. THANK YOU! tinyurl.com/FITCto2015 @ImpressiveWebs