JavaScript lovers: There’s a new Philly meetup focusing on frontend dev

Two Philly technologists are behind a few-months-old JavaScript meetup that focuses on exciting things in frontend development.

Development lead Joe Woods and senior software engineer Matt Brophy launched the Philadelphia JavaScript Club, which lives on Slack and at IRL meetups throughout the city. Woods had been a fan of the previous iteration of PhillyJS, which fizzled out.

“I reached out to Matt Brophy, who had asked in phillyjs if anyone was trying to get a meetup off the ground, we got coffee, and we’ve been gradually ramping it up over time,” Woods told Technical.ly.

That was in May, the developer said, and now the group meets once a month. It’s a small group of devs at all different skill levels — some are “experts” at what they do, and others are just starting out. They can chat about anything, but mostly focus on frontend development with JavaScript. Participants also host show-and-tell sessions about projects they’re working in.

Most of the attendees are people who write JavaScript day to day, while some people who attend aren’t using it regularly. The common thread is liking the language and the “opportunities it affords.”

Like JavaScript? Live in or near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania? Come join us! https://t.co/ZPgmt4GD7n

— Joe Woods (@tjwds) August 2, 2022

The Philadelphia JavaScript Club last met Sept. 8, and you can expect meetups once a month.

Woods said he doesn’t have an overt preference for JavaScript — “I like basically all languages” — but he does happen to write a lot of JavaScript. (As do plenty of other developers: It’s among the most popular, per Stack Overflow.) That’s because it’s evolved over time into an expressive language that’s easy to learn, but still lets you dive into highly specialized and complicated implementations, he said.

“But you can’t really talk about JavaScript without talking about web browsers; some people might have complaints about how writing code for the web works, and some of those complaints might even be true,” he said. “But there’s something really magical about how we’ve gotten to a state where it’s so easy to get the finished product of your development in front of people.”

Woods doesn’t know if JavaScript is more popular in Philly compared to other tech hubs, however, “I think this city and the companies that call it home are just as on top of the ball.”

You can join the meetup group by getting connected on its Slack. And if you have thoughts about regional software trends, we’d love to hear about em: philly@technical.ly