JSFoo 2013

What were the key innovations with DocPad that made it the success it is (technical)
How did we spot those innovations (non-technical)
What tools were used to build the community (technical)
How did this all tie together to build a strong growing community (non-technical)

Outline

This talk will be presented as a showcase of DocPad’s achievements and a how-to guide for how one would go about reproducing them. It will be split into 4 segments, 2 technical, and 2 non-technical. The technical segments will have live coding and showcase some amazing technologies, and the non-technical segments will feature story telling and practical advice. This presentation style fits quite accordingly with the theme of being about makers and creators, as while we have to be technically stunning, we also have to be personally adept and mature enough for our technical demands.

The segments will be:

What were the key innovations with DocPad that made it the success it is (technical), covers: the dynamic + static abilities (hybrid design), node.js, static site generator, agnostic compilation, gui agnostic, skeleton cloning, plugin system, query-engine (backbone.js), statistic tracking, newsletter subscriptions, tooling (caterpillar, flow control, etc).

How did we spot those innovations (non-technical), covers: frustration, broad in-depth knowledge, always questioning, intense care, benevolent socialist dictatorship, growth for re-enforcement, release often, user interviews.

What tools were used to build the community (technical), covers: git, github, issue tracking, pull request, plugin infrastructure, docpad wiki infrastructure, skeleton infrastructure, website infrastructure.

How did this all tie together to build a strong growing community (non-technical), covers: values, roadmap, community philosophy, open-collaboration, encouragement, empowerment, permission, loss of ego/self, value exchange, monetization, partnerships, sponsorships.

Requirements

Laptop would be nice for bookmarking as we do the technical demos, but not necessary.

Speaker bio

Open-collaboration entrepreneur. Founder of Bevry (an open-collaboration consulting practice), DocPad (the most popular CMS for Node.js), History.js (one of the most popular JavaScript projects in the world) and Startup Hostel (co-work and co-live).

Links

• http://balupton.com
• http://speakerrate.com/speakers/11963-benjamin-lupton
• http://bevry.me
• http://startuphostel.org

Slides

http://docpad.org