# Conferences, Clarity, and Smokescreens

DevFeed: [Conferences, Clarity, and Smokescreens](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/conferences-clarity-and-smokescreens-26550.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://infrequently.org/2025/06/conferences-clarity-and-smokescreens/>)

Author: Alex Russell

Published: 2025-06-27T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Alex Russell](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/alex-russell.md>)

Topics: [React](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/react.md>), [Framework](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/framework.md>), [Accessibility](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/accessibility.md>)

Tags: [accessibility](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/accessibility.md>), [browsers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/browsers.md>), [conference](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/conference.md>), [conferences](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/conferences.md>), [performance](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/performance.md>), [react](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/react.md>), [talks](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/talks.md>), [webdev](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/webdev.md>)

## AI overview

The article contrasts JSNation with React Summit 2025, arguing that JSNation encouraged debate about measurable engineering problems while React Summit largely reinforced prevailing framework narratives. It presents the React community as facing a measurable quality crisis that was not sufficiently represented in the conference program.

## Source excerpt

Before saying anything else, I'd like to thank the organisers of JSNation for inviting me to speak in Amsterdam. I particularly appreciate the folks who were brave enough to disagree at the Q&A sessions afterwards. Engaged debate about problems we can see and evidence we can measure makes our work better. The conference venue was lovely, and speakers were more than well looked after. Many of the JSNation talks were of exactly the sort I'd hope to see as our discipline belatedly confronts a lost decade, particularly Jeremias Menichelli's lighting talk. It masterfully outlined how many of the hacks we have become accustomed to are no longer needed, even in the worst contemporary engines. view-source:// on the demo site he made to see what I mean. Vinicius Dallacqua's talk on LoAF was on-point, and the full JSNation line-up included knowledgeable and wise folks, including Jo, Charlie, Thomas, Barry, Nico, and Eva. There was also a strong set of accessibility talks from presenters I'm less familiar with, but whose topics were timely and went deeper than the surface. They even let me present a spicier topic than I think they might have been initially comfortable with. All-in-all, JSNation was a lovely time, in good company, with a strong bent toward doing a great job for users. Recommended. Day 21 -- React Summit 2025 -- could not have been more different. While I was in a parallel framework authors meeting for much of the morning,2 I did attend talks in the afternoon, studied the schedule, and went back through many more after the fact on the stream. Aside from Xuan Huang's talk on Lynx and Luca Mezzalira's talk on architecture, there was little in the program that challenged frameworkist dogma, and much that played to it. This matters because conferences succeed by foregrounding the hot topics within a community. Agendas are curated to reflect the tides of debate in the zeitgeist, and can be read as a map of the narratives a community's leaders wish to see debated. My da