Bath JS, a free meetup for JavaScript and frontend developers living or working in and around Bath, is preparing to launch a series of new hack nights starting this November and focusing on blockchain – the revolutionary shared ledger technology used by digital currency Bitcoin.
The group was co-founded by Dave Taylor, a Technology Lead at Bath-based Seccl Tech, and Ben Gourley, a Senior Product Architect at Bath-based BugSnag, earlier this year to create a community for those keen to share their coding knowledge as well as for others wishing to learn more.
“We’re excited to be learning and trying new things, so if someone aligns with that then we’d love to see them”
After a few months of pizza fuelled chats and relaxed meetups, its active membership has grown to include a Slack channel, plenty of opportunities to bring along side-projects and work alongside others, as well as regular lunchtime meetups to boot.
As discussion turned to what they could learn next, it was decided to put the focus onto the emerging technology blockchain. As Dave (pictured left) explains: “There’s been a lot of hype around this technology for a while and yet we often seem none-the-wiser as to what it actually might look like in a real world disruptive way.
“We are going to start with a few options and see what the people involved want to go into. The ideas so far include developing our own simplified blockchain mechanism using JavaScript, setting up our own private blockchain based on the open-source software behind Ethereum using Parity and using the Etherium test blockchain, Rinkeby, to develop house ownership smart contracts.”
The meetup is now looking for both those keen to get dug in, as well as experts in blockchain who are willing to spare some of their time to help the community make a real success of their hacks.
Dave adds: “Our ethos has always been to not have the traditional meetups with speakers. This has been because we wanted to help and support the other great meetups in and around Bath who often need speakers. What we decided to focus on was community and learning in the form of workshops and hacks.
“We’re excited to be learning and trying new things, so if someone aligns with that then we’d love to see them. We would also value anyone who has experience with blockchain technology to help out.”
If this sounds like it’s right up your street, you can join BathJS for free via meetup, find their code of conduct on Github and join the BathJS Slack channel to find out more. You can also stay tuned by following the group on Twitter here: @BathJS.
