Announcing: “Learn JavaScript Deeply” Track (Part Deux)

To build upon last year’s effort, Matt Mullenweg (CEO of Auttomatic) reaffirms his commitment to learn JavaScript deeply during his “State of the Word” (click here to watch the video – the mention is 20:44 minutes into the video).

An interesting fun fact: the WordPress codebase is 28% JavaScript. Matt claimed that it’s the future of the web, and WordCamp Miami believes that as well. To that end, WordCamp Miami is devoting it’s entire developer’s track on Sunday to JavaScript education.

In a nutshell:

  • The Learn JavaScript Deeply track is for BOTH new and experienced developers who want to improve their JavaScript knowledge. This track is great for those who are just starting to get a handle on JavaScript.
  • There is also plenty of material for more advanced developers who have a solid knowledge, but need to know how to move forward with practical applications.
  • The track will cover everything from basic concepts to advanced JavaScript frameworks like React, Angular and how to apply more advanced concepts to WordPress development.
  • Although WordPress may be discussed in a few talks, the track contains mountains of knowledge and tips for any JavaScript developer regardless if you use WordPress or not.

The “Learn JavaScript Deeply” track will be on Sunday, March 26th. It is a full-day track.

Nizar Khalife Iglesias

Nizar Khalife is the Lead Instructor at Ironhack in Miami and has been a Web developer for over 9 years. He teaches tech-literacy and the craft of coding. Nizar also writes software for the Web, usually in his preferred language: JavaScript.

Aside from that, Nizar is from Puerto Rico and enjoys video games, film and cookies.

Talk: “Callbacks, I promise to explain.”: Ever try to integrate 3rd party code and it didn’t work because callbacks? Callbacks are probably the most treacherous concept in all of JavaScript. Join us in exploring the theory behind callbacks and asynchronous code while we try to integrate with YouTube’s IFrame Player API.

Josh Pollock

Josh, is a WordPress plugin developer, educator and entrepreneur. He is the owner of CalderaWP, makers of Caldera Forms, and a co-founder of Ingot, the easiest A/B testing solution for WordPress. In addition he is a contributor to WordPress core, the WordPress REST API, and plugins by Foo Plugins, Postmatic, Pods, Aesop Interactive, WordImpress, GravityView and more.

One of Josh’s favorite things to do is to share what he has learned about WordPress plugin development, business and community. He writes regularly for Torque Magazine and has contributed to other top WordPress tutorial sites including, Smashing Magazine, Tuts+, and WPBeginner. He is also the author of the book The Ultimate Guide to the WordPress REST API.

Talk: “Exploring The WordPress REST API WiIth VueJS”: Learn how to make use of post endpoints of the WordPress REST API using the VueJS framework. This talk will provide an introduction to VueJS, a relatively simple, yet extremely powerful JavaScript framework. We will use WordPress data, via the WordPress REST API, to create practical examples of how to use VueJS to edit and show a post, create posts lists and switch between them using the Vue router.

Zac Gordon

Zac Gordon is a professional educator, currently working with the JavaScript for WordPress Master Course. Previously, Zac taught WordPress for Treehouse. He has years of experience teaching WordPress and Web Development at the college level and high school level. In addition to teaching, Zac also runs Web Hosting for Students, the world’s largest hosting company dedicated to students and teachers.

Talk: “Tricky Things About JavaScript Explained Simply”: In this talk, WordPress educator Zac Gordon goes over many of the popular JavaScript libraries and frameworks (jQuery, Backbone, Ember, Angular and React) and discusses various use cases for each one. Of course, the talk also includes emphasis on some vanilla JS knowledge a WordPress dev should have.

Auston Bunsen

Auston is a self-taught programmer, polyglot (PHP, Ruby, Python, JS) & 2x CTO. He’s currently the head instructor at Wyncode Academy, where he helps people develop and refine programming abilities over 10 weeks.

Talk: “Getting Started with React”: React is amazing” they said. “It makes front end so much simpler”. These are the kinds of statements you hear about React. We will go through a few basic ways to set up your React tool chain & the basics of React via a todo app.

Jonathan Brinley

Jonathan began tinkering with WordPress websites and plugins eleven years ago, taking the plunge into full-time freelancing shortly thereafter. He has collaborated with the distributed team at Modern Tribe for six years, and currently leads a team of developers to build delightful and creative solutions on top of the WordPress platform. When he’s not coding, Jonathan is busy homeschooling his two children and enjoying the beautiful weather of Northeast Florida.

Talk: “A PHP developer’s adventures in React : building plugin admin interfaces”: Just about any moderately complex WordPress plugin requires some sort of administrative interface. In many cases, your code for this UI could benefit from the flexibility and power provided by the React JavaScript library, but integrating React with the WordPress admin brings its own set of challenges. From developer tools, to data persistence, to extensibility, we’ll explore some of these challenges and the solutions we’ve developed at Modern Tribe as we’ve used React to build elegant administrative user experiences in WordPress.

Making React applications play nicely with the WordPress admin involves a number of tricks and workarounds. I’ll cover topics such as integration with the TinyMCE editor, communication with WP’s existing JS libraries, setting up developer tools such as hot module reloading, and persisting data in the WP database.


More Speakers and Surprises To Come!

Speakers are being added to the above lineup and they’ll be announced in a few days along with our weekend schedule.

Speakers will be sharing all the code online. For this unique and exclusive track, there will also be a Q&A for those with questions. It’s a perfect time to get the feedback and suggestions from a group of experienced developers. No question is too basic or small! There will also be a section of the schedule dedicated to speakers sharing the best resources so you can continue your education after the conference. A Slack channel (click here to signup) will be provided exclusively for developers at the conference so you can virtually meet developers before the conference… and follow up with them after the conference as well.

More information and surprises concerning WordCamp Miami’s “Learn JavaScript Deeply” track will be announced the closer we get to the conference. We are looking forward to educating the local community and hope this starts a trend of knowledgable workshops and tracks in future WordCamps in 2017!

Grab your weekend ticket now to make sure you can attend. Developers should also come to our BuddyCamp Developers workshop on Friday, March 24th.

WordCamp Miami 2017 is over. Check out the next edition!