Hi Gordon and thank you for your time and the chance to hear a bit more from you and your upcoming talk about JavaScript for Microcontrollers with Espruino at the JS Kongress in Munich. Can you tell our audience a bit about yourself and your everyday work?
I enjoy making stuff – out of software, electronics, wood or metal. I made Espruino as a way to spend more time creating, and less time debugging – and I’m lucky enough to now be able to spend all my time working on Espruino and supporting its users.
Munich is known as one of the most beautiful cities in europe and with the Alte Kongresshalle we secured us a very unique venue, is it your first visit in Munich or do you travel extensively?
I’ve travel for meetings, talks, and the odd holiday, but not a huge amount. I have been to Munich before though – it’s a great city, and it’ll be nice to be back.
What encourages you to give talks at conferences, is there any special Reason why you applied for the call for papers at the JS Kongress?
JS Kongress was advertised as JS for Web, Hardware and Games – I rarely see conferences mention hardware explicitly (maybe IoT), and I hope that with Espruino I’ve got something to add that folks with be interested in.
JS Kongress is trying to go ahead of other conferences by switching the focus from Web and Mobile to Games, Hardware & Web. Do you believe there is a future of JavaScript outside of the Browser?
Yes – that’s what I bet my company on. Many embedded control systems use dated interpreted languages, and JavaScript is the obvious next step. The millions of webpages that ‘just work’ are a testament to the robustness of JavaScript, which will become vital as things connect to the internet. Imagine what browsing the web would be like if webpages had to be scripted in C 🙂
Many JavaScript Projects are Open Source and “made with love” what is in your opinion the best Part about JavaScript, what do you enjoy the most about JavaScript?
I like the REPL. Being able to inspect and change variables/functions while your code is executing, without restarting, makes development and debugging fun – especially when you’re dealing with hardware.
What will be the major benefit hearing your talk, what will the audience take home from your words?
I hope that if they hadn’t tried experimenting with hardware before, they’ll want to have a go. They should see how easy it is to get started, and to create useful things.
Thank you very much for your time!
We’re looking forward to meet you soon in Munich!?
