Katie Fenn: Chrome DevTools, Inside Out

At the end of November, we were lucky enough to have Katie Fenn (http://www.katiefenn.co.uk/) come to the University of Edinburgh to give a talk on “Chrome DevTools, Inside Out”. This kicked off the community’s industry talks for the 2017/8 academic year. Although this talk was some time ago, I’ve only gotten a chance to write it up now…!

Katie has given this talk numerous times, so I’ve included some links to slides and recordings below:

• Slides of this talk from WordCamp London 2016
• Recording of this talk at WordCamp London 2016
• Recording of this talk at Render 2016

This is actually the third time I’ve seen Katie give this talk  – and it’s been extremely useful every time! Chrome DevTools is packed with features, and seems to change constantly. It can be quite tough to come to grips with everything that it has to offer, and to understand how to get best use out of it. Katie gives a great summary of some of the features which you can benefit from, and also demonstrates how to use them in a simple way.

As with my previous write-ups, I’m always interested in learning who has decided to attend. Overall, we had a smaller number of sign-ups than at some of our previous events. This makes sense, given that it is a more specialised, technical subject and the event took place right before the holiday period. However, we were still able to attract almost 60 staff and students.

Not surprisingly, most of our attendees came from Information Services (56%), followed by the College of Science and Engineering (23%). Again, this makes sense given the technical nature of the talk.

The talk was also attended by many more staff members than students – 82% to 12%. This may be because students are less familiar with Chrome DevTools, and therefore may not be as interested in attending a talk on this subject.

Overall, the event was received very positively by all the attendees. The smaller group meant that we had a more casual, intimate atmosphere. After the talk, many people chose to stick around to chat with Katie and pick up some of the npm stickers she brought along. I’m looking forward to many more similar events in future.