Thanks to everyone who came along to the June meetup!
A big shoutout to Tree Thunk for sponsoring the event — your support means a lot. And of course, a huge thank you to Codeweavers for hosting us again. These meetups wouldn’t be possible without your ongoing generosity.
Talk
Zero to Production using AI
Elliot Evans — Lead Full Stack Developer, Tree Thunk
Recently, TreeThunk was asked to create a web application for a local sports company. With limited time and resources, Elliot goes through how AI helps you make an MVP ready for users.
Thanks, Ed Barton, for photographing the event for us.
Thanks to everyone who came along to the June meetup!
A big shoutout to Tree Thunk for sponsoring the event — your support means a lot. And of course, a huge thank you to Codeweavers for hosting us again. These meetups wouldn’t be possible without your ongoing generosity.
We’ll describe our journey from ideas through prototypes (used in a West-End theatre and a major musical touring the UK) to products.
Along the way, we’ve formed a new company, found suppliers, needed a web site, refined user interfaces and overcome technical challenges.
Our leading product – EC24, a dynamics processor – is widely used but little known outside professional audio circles … we aim to rectify that by demonstrating it in operation.
Thanks, Ed Barton, for photographing the event for us.
Thanks to everyone who came along to the April meetup!
A big shoutout to Tree Thunk for sponsoring the event — your support means a lot. And of course, a huge thank you to Codeweavers for hosting us again. These meetups wouldn’t be possible without your ongoing generosity.
Talk
StrangerChat – the challenges of an anonymous chatting platform
Patrick shared the story behind StrangerChat, his Discord bot that facilitates anonymous chats inspired by Omegle. The bot randomly connects users for private conversations and has now facilitated over 12.5 million messages among 50,000 people. While the technical implementation was relatively straightforward, the real complexity came in managing safety, moderation, and privacy.
Patrick’s talk covered how content moderation quickly became the most demanding part of the project. Early on, he relied on manual review of user reports, but as the platform grew, this wasn’t sustainable. He eventually introduced automated systems, including OpenAI’s moderation tools, to help review conversations and enforce community guidelines. The platform also added features like age verification and separated NSFW and SFW channels to reduce risks.
Privacy and ethics were central themes of the talk. Patrick spoke openly about the uncomfortable tension between wanting to protect users and needing visibility into conversations to do so. Logging chats raised difficult questions about user consent and data handling, particularly in an environment designed to be anonymous.
Despite the challenges, StrangerChat has found its place as a low-friction, anonymous social tool on Discord. Patrick closed with a personal touch—sharing that his own marriage began with an anonymous chat on Omegle years ago, highlighting how these platforms can facilitate meaningful, real-world connections.
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
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.
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.
Staffs Web Meetup 