I organize a monthly meeting called Reston & Herndon Web Development Group. We had one this week and the topic was Responsive Design. I’ve been meaning to have this meeting earlier but had difficulty finding a venue sponsor. Arzo from The Buller Group was kind enough to provide space at her office. Not only did they provided space, they also provided food & drinks. If Arzo is ok and members of the group liked the location, I hope that we can continue using this location.
I shared with the group topics we can cover in 2014. I’ve been trying to come up with a set of topics that are relevant to web development and will help web developers get better at what they do. The topics are:
- Model-View-Controller
- Database
- Ajax
- Scalability
- Performance
- Usability
- Testing
- Security
- Web Services
- Content Management Systems
Following topics were also suggested from the group:
- Javascript / NodeJS / Angular
- Accessibility
- Internet of All Things
- Privacy
- Web GIS
- HTML5
- Website Traffic Analytics
- Augmented Reality
These are all great topics and I am going to work on organizing these topics and weaving them into meetings for 2014.
We did not have any presenter or speaker this time. So at the suggestion of Dee, a member of our group, we watched a 15-minute video on responsive design to facilitate the discussion: Responsive Design vs. Mobile Websites Explained. The follow-on discussion focused on what people thought of responsive design, pros and cons of having responsive website vs. dedicated mobile website, and how responsive design/mobile site can be further improved. It was a great discussion and I hope everyone learned something from the meeting.
It was great to see familiar faces: Sean and Dee. I also got to meet a couple of new folks: Justin, Terrance, Brad, Michael, and folks from The Buller Group. There were a few people at the meeting that I did not get to meet/talk and I hope to talk to them next month: Abdul, David, Sam, Chandra, and one more person whose name escapes me.