&yet

In an effort to build a more inclusive community around the events we're a part of, we'd like to announce our very first (but certainly not last) Human JavaScript Training Scholarship.

We understand that very few people, both in tech and in the world, have access to the resources needed to level-up in their careers. This is especially true of marginalized groups, who are consistently underrepresented and often even pushed out of our industry without the opportunity to thrive here.

We also understand that there are serious barriers to entry in our industry that keep people who are marginalized by race and/or gender from entering and actively participating in our field.

With this in mind, we'll be covering one person's trip and tuition to participate in Human JavaScript: LIVE!, our two-day, intensive JavaScript workshop for JS developers who are looking to level-up in building clientside, single-page web apps. This workshop focuses on writing modular and maintainable code, while emphasizing the importance of code collaboration.

We are very excited to announce that the iOS app for Talky is now available for download on the App Store.

(Can I get a woohoo?)

Take a quick look

Introducing Ampersand.js a highly modular, loosely coupled, non-frameworky framework for building advanced JavaScript apps.

Why!?!

We <3 Backbone.js at &yet. It’s brilliantly simple code and it solves many common problems in developing clientside applications.

But we missed the focused simplicity of tiny modules in node-land. We wanted something similar in style and philosophy, but that fully embraced tiny modules, npm, and browserify.

JS for Teams: It's ALIIIIVE! is a two-day training adventure happening July 24 & 25 focused on teaching teams how to build advanced single-page apps in a highly maintainable way. Tickets on sale today!

To celebrate, we're offering $200 off per ticket for the next 5 tickets – use the discount code AMPERSAND at check-out.

The tickets we set aside for our email subscribers already sold out, so don't miss your chance. Seats are extremely limited.

Enroll now

Is there an inherent business risk in letting your top JavaScript developers do their best work?

(What a painful thought!)

It's one thing to build with the latest tools and techniques, but what happens when the developers who led the way on a given app move on to greener pastures?

JavaScript apps are notorious for being largely written by one "rockstar," ending up dominated by the most experienced JS dev, the most charismatic person, or at least by the fastest typer.

A few months ago, WebRTC agitator and yeti-friend Chris Koehnke wrote an excellent blog post explaining that browser-based videochat won't work 100% of the time without a little help from something called a "TURN Server". As he put it:

If you're going to launch a WebRTC powered service for financial 
gain, then you need to have done everything within your power to
ensure it works reliably across as many cases as possible.

Chris was satisfied when a few simple tests worked and stopped after that. Well, he skipped the next step. But that's reasonable because he was probably bored already (does anyone get excited about TURN servers?) and he doesn't run a WebRTC powered service himself.

The next step is looking for cases where things did not work and figure out what we can do about it. But hey, we run a WebRTC service called Talky and connection failures are frustrating, so we decided to dig a little deeper.

Our partners in the opposite of crime ^Lift Security, are proud to welcome their newest member to our team, builder and breaker of things, Tom Steele.

Besides having the coolest name ever, Tom brings his knowledge of varied languages, passion for open source work, and a strong desire to help empower developer communities through security education and collaboration.

His experience creating the open source project Lair as well as his early enthusiasm and contributions for the Node Security Project are just two of the many reasons we’re glad he joined the ^Lift team.

We’re very excited to have Tom onboard, and for all of the awesome things he’s going to do with the team to help push ^Lift Security to the next level.

Last October, Mike Speegle introduced us to the world of the Tech Republic and the narrative behind RealtimeConf 2013 in his novel, “Something Greater than Artifice.” The book is now available in its entirety for free download at RealtimeConf.com.

Download your copy on Kindle, ePub, or PDF before Monday, May 5 when it will only be available for purchase on Amazon.

If you haven‘t explored the world of “Something Greater than Artifice” here’s what people are saying:

“[Something Greater than Artifice] examines in a new way the implications of our use of technology, while still remaining hopeful–something that is often forgotten in futuristic novels.”

We are thrilled to release "Something Greater than Artifice", a tremendous work created by our friend and colleague, Mike Speegle. It's now available on all kinds of media. (The beautiful cover was designed by Amy Lynn Taylor.)

Mike put months of effort into the first half of the novel, which was released in serial form in advance of RealtimeConf, where the story was concluded as a live stage play.

Immediately after RealtimeConf, Mike went to work concluding the novel. The ending has so much more than was visible in the play at the conference. I highly recommend reading it.

RealtimeConf may be over, but now the experience can live on somewhere other than in the hearts and minds of the people who were there: RealtimeConf.com.

Over the past few months, our team has collected memories from the ambitious event, recorded the original music featured there, and discovered the fates of Ros and Gregor in the phenomenal conclusion to Mike Speegle’s novel, Something Greater than Artifice.

We’ve even started planning our next epic adventure, JS for Teams, sign up here to find out about pre-registration.

It was a long road to the Tech Republic, so we hope you enjoy the trip down memory lane, and that you’ll join us on our future treks around the universe.