Author: Phil

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the March meetup! A huge thank you to Tree Thunk for sponsoring the event—we really appreciate the support. Another big thank you to Codeweavers for hosting and supporting the meetup—their continued generosity makes these sessions possible.

Talk

Use the platform

Fiona Knight — Senior Lecturer, Staffordshire University

What the web can do today without frameworks, libraries or fudges.

Fiona’s presentation explored the evolving web platform, focusing on CSS advancements while touching on HTML and JavaScript. She discussed how web standards now update continuously, and browsers follow an “evergreen” model with automatic updates, making it challenging for developers to keep pace—something 21% reported struggling with in a Google I/O 2024 survey.

She highlighted key initiatives like “Baseline” and “Interop,” which improve cross-browser compatibility, and showcased major CSS developments, including variables, container queries, masonry layouts, and new selectors. She also covered accessibility enhancements, such as media queries that adapt to user preferences like dark mode and reduced motion.

It was a fast-paced and engaging talk, and Fiona mentioned that additional HTML and JavaScript content could be explored in a future session. She wrapped up with a demo of web manifests, showing how web apps can be installed like native apps with offline functionality via service workers.

Thanks, Ian Knight, for photographing the event for us.

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the February meetup! A huge thank you once again to Codeweavers for hosting and supporting the event — their continued generosity makes these sessions possible.

Talks

Making your mark – how to make an impact in your team

Ollie Reardon — Lead Full Stack Developer, DeterTech

In this talk, I will be sharing some personal notes on how to make a positive impact in your new or existing team, regardless of experience or skill level.

Creative coding on the web

Rob Wells — Lead Engineer, Absolute Collagen

In this talk, I’ll be talking through a project that mashes up a bunch of Web APIs in a living coding web app, that probably belongs in nightclub, instead of a tech meetup.

A massive thank you to everyone who attended our final meetup of the year! We’re so grateful for your continued support, and a special thanks goes to Codeweavers for once again hosting us so graciously.

We ended the evening with festive cheer, replacing our usual open discussion session with a lively Christmas quiz and raffle. Thanks to generous prize donations from several members, everyone went home a winner!

As we bid farewell to 2024, we want to thank every attendee, speaker, and supporter for making this year so special. We’re excited to return next year with even more great talks, engaging discussions, and community-building events.

Talk

Pure CSS Component APIs

Adam Harding — Lead UX Designer, Instem

Discover the power of modern CSS as Adam guides us through creating production-ready components with robust customisation APIs. We’ll explore public and private variables, type registering, clamping, range mapping, mutation, inheritance, and maybe even answer that age-old question: “Is CSS even a real programming language?”

Unfortunately, the audio didn’t record for the first half of the talk, but trust us—it was fantastic! The second half is well worth a watch, so don’t miss out.

This month’s meetup was a truly special one as we celebrated 10 years of our community! Back in October 2014, our very first gathering was a casual social at the Bean enCounter, where we gauged interest in creating a local hub for web and tech enthusiasts. Fast forward to today, and what a journey it’s been!

We’ve faced our share of challenges over the years—COVID disruptions, sudden venue closures—but we’ve also enjoyed countless highs! Together, we’ve built a welcoming, friendly community that’s become a home for those working in web, tech, and related fields in Stafford. A massive thank you to everyone who has contributed to this milestone: our speakers, volunteers, sponsors, and of course, our attendees and members who make it all worthwhile.

A huge thanks goes out to Codeweavers for graciously hosting our event once again. Their continued support is genuinely appreciated!

Talk

Estimation – A Necessary Evil

Jude Smalley — Delivery Manager, OVO

In this talk we will cover my 5 key learnings about estimation from 10 years working in software delivery:

• There is no one-size fits all approach
• Context matters
• Estimation is a team sport
• Estimation is a team commitment
• Estimation is a necessary evil

We’ll touch on different methods, understanding your situation, who should be involved, why people pleasing is the ultimate anti pattern and why it is actually important to provide some kind of estimation.

I would like people to walk away from my talk with a new or improved mindset about how they approach estimating in a software delivery context, and I’ll be around for questions or discussions afterwards.