October 2023

October was a packed month. The highlight was running two events for EdinburghJS, the JavaScript Meetup. The first was our regular monthly meetup. We had Harvey from FanDuel talk about building libraries and Rusty talked about Chrome extensions. We had some people join from further afield: Manchester, London and even a couple of folks from India who were just visiting the city!

The second event was the first EdinburghJS Code Jam: an all-day Saturday event where we learnt about the Astro framework and built out some personal websites.

I was really pleased that we raised sponsorship from gigged.ai and Codebase. Without their support the event would have had to be a lot smaller. We had a good crowd of people, and I think everyone who attended learned at least a little bit. I’m keen to repeat this style of event next year - so will take suggestions as to themes or topics.

I chose the topic of building personal websites as I think having a community of people sharing thoughts and experiences is key to building a scene. I want to grow the Edinburgh (and Scottish) technology scene. That means writing about technical issues, management, growth, ideas, companies and people. I’m doing my bit here. It’s been beneficial for me. I want to share that with others.

We are relaunching GlasgowJS in November, so look out for that!

The rest of the month I have spent with Harriet and Jack, eking out the last of H’s maternity leave. We tried take away from the new Pomelo location in Sciennes (always busy). We went for their chicken sandwiches - delicious!

We took Jack to our NCT first birthday celebrations. All the kids in our group turn one year old in the next month, so this was to celebrate that milestone. Jack seemed to have a good time playing, and it was nice to socialise with the other parents.

As every other month, Jack has been a delight. He has grown so much, and can’t be too far off taking his first steps. It seems like every week brings something new.

This month I read The Blazing World by Jonathan Healey on revolutionary England, following up on last month’s Restless Republic by Anna Keay. This month I part read: The Enlightened Economy by Joel Mokyr dealing with the history of Britain during the Industrial Revolution and Birmingham: the first manufacturing town by Eric Hopkins both in support of the OU History module I recently started.

That’s all for this month. See you at the end of November 👋