/ch/open Workshop Tage: JavaScript Bootcamp for Java Developers

Last week Marc and I held a workshop at the /ch/open Workshoptage:

JavaScript for Real Developers: A Survival-Bootcamp

 

The goal of the full-day workshop was to give typical Java enterprise developers an overview over the current landscape and ecosystem of JavaScript development. Typical undifferentiated prejudices that exist towards JavaScript should be refuted (or confirmed with facts).

The topic we focused on were:

• JavaScript as a language (concepts, patterns, parallels to other OO languages …)
• jQuery as a de-facto standard library for client-side JavaScript development
• The JavaScript toolchain (setting up a professional development and build toolchain)
• Integration of a JavaScript project into a Java project (using Maven and/or Node.js)
• Modern Web Architectures (JavaScript for the frontend, Java for the backend)
• Client Side MVC

The exercises and demos can be found in our Github repository.

I had the idea for this workshop some time ago, when I was working in several enterprise web projects, and I realised that JavaScript is getting more and more important for any kind of (web) projects, but typical enterprise developers (like me) try to avoid the topic at any price. Usually all abstractions (like JSF or GWT) break at some point and JavaScript leaks through. But then it is mostly too late to start dealing with JavaScript professionally, because the project has already progressed into a phase where it's not possible to lay the necessary groundwork for serious JavaScript development. 

The workshop seemed to hit a nerve in the current Java enterprise community: It was fully booked within a few days after the program for the workshop days was published (because there are hands-on exercises in the workshop, we limited the maximal number of attendees to 20).

Thanks to the organisers of the workshop days, we could schedule the workshop a second time at the same workshop days. Also this second workshop was booked out within several days.

I enjoyed the two days of teaching very much and working with Marc was great fun. From both workshops we also got quite good feedback (the official feedback is published here), so we guess that it was also a good experience for the attendees.

I hope there will be the possibility to repeat the workshops in the future. We are open for any suggestions...