Over the last few years, JavaScript has been developing much more rapidly and we are starting to see it move well out of the browser. Most people assume this just means running server side as NodeJS however we're also starting to see it run in physical environments as well.
Recently I was lucky enough to be invited to travel to Bangalore, India by the wonderful people at HasGeek to participate in JSFoo 15. This was a fantastic opportunity to talk not just about NodeBots but how web connected hardware is where a lot of development will be taking place over the coming decade and how web developers in particular have useful skills to bring to bear in the hardware world.
The talk was on Droids, JavaScript & Web Connected hardware, the video is below:
The full slides are available here: Droids, JavaScript & Web Connected Hardware
Droids, JavaScript and Web Connected Hardware - (CC) ajfisher
Alongside my talk was a hardware workshop and I also wrote an article for HasGeek detailing some of this transition we're starting to see.
Over the last few years I have watched this community evolve from a group of people sharing some code on GitHub and some pics on twitter to a truly global movement where thousands of developers and designers have built real-world physical things controlled with JavaScript. Web developers in particular love to make things but we tend to focus on the digital. Even our language speaks to this, where we talk about code as a "craft" as much as engineering and we "build" a site. It's this aptitude and interest in building that is one of the key elements in why NodeBots and JS hardware is taking off. I have watched the satisfaction of someone who's only experience of hardware is putting batteries into an object build a sensor that determines if the the coffee machine is free or in use.
Full article at HasGeek JavaScript - not just the language of the web