When we think of programming, we think of writing code that runs on a computer or similar device. This code is considered "software" because it is not a physical part of the system, it's information that encodes instructions for a device's operation. This is in contrast to "hardware" which are physical components of a device typically made with complex electronic circuits.
FPGAs are special devices that instead of running what we think of traditional code, configures itself according to a design specified by a Hardware Descriptor Language (HDL) which tells the FPGA what kinds of hardware functions it will implement. Is this also software? The characteristics are very similar. You write code in an HDL, compile that code, upload it to the device. However, there are stark differences in our models of what code does between programming languages and what hardware descriptor languages do. An FPGA can even have two levels of programability, one level as a hardware description for a CPU, and the other for the CPU provided by the hardware description! Very neat.
Come learn about this at our meetup where Doug will give a short presentation and demonstration of FPGAs and hardware coding. Learning the fundamentals of hardware will make you a better software developer whether you're just doing javascript or a long time developer with many languages and frameworks under your belt. All levels of experience and interest are welcome!
