Hello readers. Today I'm writing this post in lovely Natchez, Mississippi as my mother-in-law gives my wife and I a quick break out of town. Natchez is one of our favorite "getaway" destinations as it's a short drive, a nice drive (mostly backroads), and a great mall town. Without getting too annoying, I'll remind folks I'm still on the lookout for a sponsor for the site. Any sponsorship will go right to Mailchimp to ensure the mailing list doesn't hit the free tier quota. Reach out to me (raymondcamden@gmail.com) if you're interested!

A Look at Upcoming JavaScript Features

First up is a great article detailing future JavaScript improvements, "What’s Next for JavaScript: New Features to Look Forward to" by Mary Branscombe. There are multiple cool things here, but I think I'm most excited about the Intl MessageFormat spec. Intl is one of my favorite new(ish) parts of the web platform and anything that adds to it will be pretty useful I think.

MDN Launches their Playground

There are a lot of ways for developers to test code online, my usual go-to is CodePen](https://codepen.io), but MDN recently launched their own playground, as detailed here: "Introducing the MDN Playground: Bring your code to life!". What makes this different than sites like CodePen is that it's integrated right into their material, making it much easier for you to try things out as your learning. I love that level of integration and I think this could make MDN an even more important resource for web developers.

Tips for Potential Conference Speakers

Last but certainly not least is this incredibly useful article written by a great friend of mine, Brian Rinaldi. In "The Art of the CFP: Getting Your Session Accepted", Brian goes into detail on how you can craft your conference proposal into something that is more likely to be accepted at conferences. Speaking from personal experience, I've been presenting at conferences for over twenty years, and I still absolutely struggle with this. I get more rejections than acceptances so I took what he wrote to heart. (Also I'm lucky enough to know Brian well so I can hit him up for personal advice.) Whether you considering your first conference proposal or your hundredth, I'd read this article.

Something Completely Different...

I'd like to end with something not tech related at all, or at least not web tech. My buddy Todd Sharp recently shared this video by Avenged Sevenfold. While this is not my style of music, the video was absolutely incredible. You don't see much stop-motion animation anymore and this is a great example of the art form.