React.js and functional Javascript (Dustin Getz & Daniel Miladinov)

Bring your laptops and thinking caps - it's time to learn about Facebook React (http://facebook.github.io/react/)! This will be a four hour Javascript workshop (6:30 - 10:30), co-hosted by Dustin Getz and Daniel Miladinov of Wingspan. Don't let the length dissuade you from attending. It's fine if you come for the first half then leave early.

Facebook React is making headlines in the Javascript world for the simplicity with which it lets one build complicated browser components. React is awesome because it brings the very basic essence of functional programming to the frontend.

In this workshop, we will livecode several demo apps, and the audience will code along on their laptops, starting with the very basics and quickly building up to advanced examples.

Most people recognize that React brings an innovative DOM management strategy: an immutable pseudo-DOM and reconciliation algorithm which enables functional programming friendly abstractions in browser UIs. It is less well understood that React also enables functional state management strategies, which, as Rich Hickey fans know, may be the most important concept in application development. All Javascript frameworks can handle simple forms with elegance, but Backbone, MVVM, Angular and the like don't have elegant answers for complicated UIs backed by deeply nested and hierarchical state.

In this workshop, we will learn by doing how the React approach enables higher level abstractions for UI development than we have ever seen before. Starting with the very basics and working our way to advanced topics, we will livecode several demos, with the audience following along live on their own laptops, and we will be there to help debug when things go wrong.

Here is a sneak peak at demos we may or may not cover:

• Basic validated form (blog post) (http://www.dustingetz.com/2014/02/18/react-dynamic-forms.html)

• List of forms demo (http://wingspan.github.io/wingspan-forms/examples/form-twins/)

• Faceted search (http://wingspan.github.io/wingspan-forms/examples/faceted-search/)

• Collection/Record editor (http://wingspan.github.io/wingspan-forms/examples/form-master-detail/)