Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the 2016 Render Conference in Oxford. Previously known as jQuery UK, this two-day single track conference is one of the best frontend development conferences in the UK.

It was great to spend some time checking out the latest tech, speaking with fellow developers from various companies and backgrounds and then enjoying some very entertaining and informative talks.

It all kicked off with a very good keynote talk from Bruce Lawson (CTO @ Opera) which gave us all web developers great hope for the future and a lot to look forward to. Now that the browser wars seem to be over, together with the collaborative efforts of the W3C members, we will have access to more and more features, especially on mobile devices. Soon, web applications will do everything native apps can do and we, as web developers, will be part of this paradigm shift.

Another talk which got me really excited was Gordon Williams' introduction to Espruino - a little microcontroller that runs JavaScript which can be used to control any type of hardware. Very impressive stuff; easy to pick up, cheap, and loads of fun. Who doesn't want to make a JavaScript controlled power drill with a hammer stuck at the end of it?

One thing is sure, the web is changing. The same technologies that were used to share funny pictures of cats are now grown-up and help building the next big software applications. All of us at Clevercherry are very excited about the future and what we can do to push the web forward.

Massive congratulations are due to White October Events and their sponsors for organising yet again a great conference with awesome talks and lots of geeky fun; looking forward to Render Conf 2017.

© Photos courtesy of Katura Jensen

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