The conversation around AI and web development has moved far beyond code completion and chatbots. At Web Directions Developer Summit, we’re exploring something more fundamental: how AI is reshaping not just our tools, but our entire conception of what we’re building and who we’re building for. Building Agents: Less Magic, More Engineering The mystique around […]
Twice in my career have I’ve felt the ground really shift under our feet. The first was the late 1990s and early 2000s, when standards-based development, progressive enhancement and CSS layout rewired how we build for the web. The second was the early 2010s, as responsive design and a modern JavaScript ecosystem took hold. My […]
Front-end development has become extraordinarily complex over the past fifteen years. What was for nearly the first two decades been the relatively simple direct manipulation of the Document Object Model (DOM) using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript has evolved into an intricate ecosystem of frameworks, build tools, state management libraries, and abstractions upon abstractions. React, Angular, […]
Last week, we launched the programmes for three upcoming conferences: All have a very healthy dose of AI and large language models because, whether we like it or not, whether we’re ready or not, those technologies are transforming how we do our job and the things that we build. So if you’re a front-end developer, […]
This week, we launched the programme for our upcoming Next conference, “Product in the Age of AI and LLMs“, as well as the full programme for our Developer Summit conference, coming up in late November in Sydney and, of course, online. Check out the programmes, mark your calendars, and we’ll see you there for these fantastic events! If you’d […]
I’m going out on a limb here and I’ll say that as much will change about how and what we develop for the web in the next 12 to 18 months than in the last 15 to 20 years. And that’s what Web Directions Developer Summit this year will be all about. And how you can be […]
The future of product design and development isn’t just a topic for armchair conversation—AI and LLMs are already reshaping what and how we build, think about, and interact with digital products. And above all, the nature of those products themselves. The future of product design and development isn’t just a topic for armchair conversation—AI and […]
A very busy week last week at Web Directions with our brand new Engineering AI conference. So much so that I forgot to schedule this post, that’s why it’s a few days late. Not a lot of preamble, but a lot of reading as well as a fantastic documentary on the history of Python that […]
Next week we have our brand new Engineering AI conference coming up. Now, clearly, there’s a lot of hype around AI as there has been for some years now. But if you’ve been following the newsletter for a while, you’ll know we have a particular interest in how AI, large language models, and machine learning […]
Last week we hosted UX Australia – the first for a couple of years. It was an amazing two days of in-depth expert talks on service design and user experience and all things modern design. The values of community, connection, and care emerge time and again across the talks. We’ll have the videos from the […]
With UX Australia coming up this week and our new Engineering AI conference about three weeks away not to mention the programmes for our Developer Summit and Next and Enqueue conference being finalised (to be announced next week), we’ve not got a lot to add this week to our links below. I hope you find […]
The naive understanding of evolution is that species are continually evolving. This idea held sway for the first century or more after Darwin first published his theory of evolution. But the orthodox view of evolution today is of punctuated equilibrium—the idea that for most of their existence, species remain remarkably stable, punctuated by periods of […]
In the next week or two I’ll publish our 1,000th ‘elsewhere‘—which is what I call the annotated snippets I’ve been posting since early 2024 over at Conffab. This milestone finally formalized something I’ve been doing for decades: reading countless blogs and other sources, then amplifying the articles, talks, and ideas I found valuable and hoped […]
Before we get started, a couple of quick announcements. This week, we announced the full programme for two upcoming conferences: UX Australia (end of August in Melbourne) and Engineering AI (September 12th in Sydney). So if either of those sound valuable to you, take a look at the full lineup now, and both are in-person […]
UX Australia 2025: Professional Development for Design Professionals and Leaders August 27-28, 2025 | ACMI Melbourne and OnlineIn-person & Streaming | 21 Sessions | 2 Days UX Australia 2025 brings together Australia’s leading design practitioners for two intensive days focused on the most pressing challenges shaping our industry. The program is carefully curated by Steve […]
Web Directions South is the must-attend event of the year for anyone serious about web development
Phil Whitehouse General Manager, DT Sydney
