29 April, 2012

Written by Harry Roberts on CSS Wizardry.

Last night I landed back in a cold, miserable Leeds after spending what was by far the most exciting, amazing and fun few days I’ve ever had—as a speaker at Front-Trends.

Some time last year I was invited to speak at the conference, the first of its type I have ever spoken at; ‘nervous’ doesn’t even come close.

I delivered my talk—Breaking Good Habits—to 470 people! My only previous speaking experience was in the tiny English town of Barnsley to a small room of no more than 50. This was the most terrifying thing ever (and there are over a hundred people out of shot).

I also snapped some pretty poor iPhone pictures of my time in Warsaw which, if you’re interested in, you can grab on Flickr. If you’re a speaker and somehow find that you like my poorly focussed phone-camera snap of yourself then please, by all means, grab yourself a copy.

The talks

All of the talks were fantastic, very, very diverse, a mixture of technical and theoretical. They were all remarkable but my personal favourites were Rachel’s, Chris’, Mathias’ and Bartek’s.

Rachel spoke about something that I’ve thought and agreed with for a long time; solving problems as and when they happen, not bloating your code from the outset with 101 different frameworks and, the thing that resounded with me the most, we learn by making our own mistakes.

Chris’ talk covered a lot about the concerns we as developers need to take into account these days with the shift in the web landscape. It was just so funny that you couldn’t help lap up everything he said. I can’t do his talk justice, wait for the video!

Mathias’ talk was just one of weird HTML quirkiness, something that I find super-interesting. I can’t wait for the video for that one (he was the only speaker to receive a full round of applause mid-talk!).

Bartek covered the fact that everyone who writes code is, whether they know it or not, teaching someone else who is reading that code. It was a really feel-good talk that has got me really excited to rewrite CSS Wizardry (which is long overdue anyway).

To see the videos and slides as they come available I recommend you follow the Front-Trends Twitter account; you will definitely want to catch them when they get online!

My talk

I was so, so nervous when I woke up on the morning of my talk. All I ate all day was an apple. I got on stage at 13:00, and saw the crowd of 450+ staring back at me. I was terrified.

I got straight into the swing of things but was very aware of just how nervous I was. I can’t remember the half-hour of my talk at all, it’s now a total blur, and I was worried I’d really messed it up but I got some absolutely amazing feedback from Twitter and people who found me after the talk personally. It seems everything went well!

The people

Front-Trends allowed me to finally meet some people who I’ve known online for ages. Me and Lea, Chris, Vitaly and others have followed each other for years and Front-Trends was my chance to finally meet them in person.

I took Jamie Mason along with me; Jamie is someone I met when I moved to BSkyB and he’s one of my best friends. Absolutely hilarious and incredibly likeable, as well as a very, very talented JS developer, he was a great person to have along (especially considering my nerves).

I got to meet Rachel Andrew who me and Jamie hung out with for a couple of days. Her talk was one of my favourites (she’s a great developer who speaks a lot of sense) and she’s also just super cool; she’s my new favourite person in the world! So clever yet humble,