ScotlandJS May 8, 2013

ScotlandJS will provide a forum for increasing the use of computer language JavaScript and building a community.

Although JavaScript is not a new language, its use is rapidly growing among those developing critical systems for Scotland’s private and public sectors. All too often however, software developers work alone or as part of a small team, providing them with little opportunity to discuss their work and develop their skills alongside fellow JavaScript practitioners.

Following the successful inaugural ScotlandJS event in 2012, this year’s conference is anticipating a 50% increase in delegate numbers, with attendees keen to learn from leaders in the field and share their own knowledge and experience with others.

Organised by lean startup specialist Neo, ScotlandJS will feature keynote presentations from Jan Lehnardt (an Open Source community champion and co-founder of CouchDB) and James Shore (co-author of The Art of Agile Development) as well as more than 12 talks selected by delegates from an online list of more than 50 proposals submitted by potential speakers.

Peter Aitken of Neo says: “After the success of last year’s event, we’re delighted at the level of enthusiasm we’re seeing towards ScotlandJS 2013. Use of the JavaScript language is rapidly gaining ground in areas such as front end development, server and networking programming and mobile operating systems, so events like this are vital to continue building the Javascript community in Scotland and encouraging best practice among our developers. It’s clear that developers welcome the all-too-rare opportunity to get together and discuss their work in detail with others.

“This year, we’ve also taken steps to ensure that less-experienced potential speakers have the opportunity and the confidence to put themselves forward by allowing blind online voting (hiding speakers’ names) on proposed presentations. This has had a massive impact on both the number and the diversity of the submissions we’ve received.”

An attendee at last year’s event commented: “As a designer that has shifted into the world of JavaScript development I'm never convinced what I'm doing is the 'right' way to do it. Events like ScotlandJS gives me confidence and practical-knowhow in equal measure and don't happen nearly enough in this country."