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We’ve had JavaScript focused presentations since our very first conferences, though way back in the mid 2000s (our first conferences predated even jQuery) when JavaScript was still used very sparingly by most developers, so our coverage was similarly scant.

But just as the use of JavaScript has become more and more prominent, its appearance on our conference programs has as well, all the while sharing the stage with CSS, HTML, and other technologies. But for years we’ve felt JavaScript needed more–a conference dedicated to it. After all other programming languages have their own dedicated conferences (CCPCon for C++, PyCon, GopherCon–dedicated not to the long lost web competitor Gopher, but the Go programming language–and on). We felt JavaScript deserved a conference dedicated to it as well.

Now, you might be thinking–hang on, there are a tonne of JavaScript conferences. Well at least there were pre-Covid. But (and this is absolutely no criticism of these conferences) these have almost always been web development conferences, albeit with a strong focus on JavaScript.

What we have had in mind is a conference entirely focussed on JavaScript the language. That can go into depth about aspects of the language that might be covered cursorily if at all elsewhere.

So today we’re excited that after many years of thinking about this, even once or twice almost getting to the stage of launching an in-person event, of sounding out folks on TC39 (the committee at ECMA responsible for standardising JavaScript), JavaScript engine developers, and experienced JavaScript developers, today we’re genuinely excited to announce the program for our first Global Scope conference.

Instead of “What’s new in JavaScript” style presentations covering half a dozen or more language features in brief detail, we’ll be taking the time to focus in on, and more deeply understand new, and overlooked features of the language. And the presenters really know what they are talking about–many of them working on the standardisation of the features they’re talking abut, or their implementation in browsers, or both.

So why attend?

JavaScript is a constantly evolving language. As its importance continues to grow, new language features continue to emerge. Some extend the capability of the language, others address its shortcomings.

At Global Scope, we’ll cover these features, like Temporal, which addresses JavaScript’s Date and time handling (a legacy of JavaScript’s early Java associations that Java itself abandoned 25 years ago), and intl, for internationalising and localising string, numbers, dates and times. But we cover many many more aspects of the language as well–asynchronous iterators and generators, new immutable data structures record and tuple, optional chaining and coalescing, Realms, for secure JavaScript programming and more.

We’ll also get insights into how Just In Time (JIT) compilers work, how JavaScript is being used in the real world right now from the Web Almanac, and still more.

It’s a huge program following our unique online-friendly format, of two half days, on consecutive Fridays, in late July. Each day is repeated 3 times at three different times, so wherever you are in the world you can participate at a time convenient to you. Then once the day is over, it’s available on catchup.

Global Scope is just one of 6, in depth front end focussed conferences we’re hosting in 2021. Attend from $145 (early bird ends June 30) or all the events for $595.

It’s an amazing program, and we hope to see you there.

In 2022 we have a whole series of events for Front End Developers

Across 2022 Web Directions is presenting our series of online conferences for front end designers and developers. Focussed deep dives, they go far beyond what you might expect from conference programs.

Learn more and register now

Priced individually from $195, or attend all 6, plus get access to our conference presentation platform Conffab for just $595, or $59 a month.