I attended the first-ever WebAssembly Summit this week. It had a very distinct feel to it than other more established conferences I have been to. It had a single track and happened on a single day. A lot of contributors/early adopters were in the room, and the speakers geared toward them. I went there to find compelling use cases that could be applied to my day-to-day work, but I wasn’t able to achieve that, which tells me the technology is still in the early adopter phase.
You can find my (messy) note here if you are interested in learning more.
Speakers and organizers
People ❤
How to Give a Killer Presentation
In April, I am giving a talk in front of the largest audience in my experiences so far. It is honestly terrifying, so I will give it my 100%. This guide from Chris Anderson, the TED organizer, says a compelling narrative is the most important.
Software Engineering 🌐
Fire Mario, not Fire Flowers
When we engineers think about solving a problem, our goal should be to make our users awesome (Fire Mario) rather than to create an excellent tool (Fire Flower).
WebAssembly music
The coolest presentation I saw at the WebAssembly Summit. The link will play the synthesized sound purely from code.
GraphQL Server Specification: Mutations
The most essential trait of GraphQL API is backward compatibility. The relay spec is an easy way to future proof the compatibility.
Business 💸
Front Series C Deck
Mathilde Collin has published the deck that raised $59 million for Front, a shared inbox company. Here are Series A deck and Series B deck as well.
HQ Trivia shuts down after acquisition falls through
An online trivia service that was so hot just a couple years ago shut down. I still remember how envious my team was of the service when I was at an online community startup. Consumer-facing services are a tough business.
youngk.im 