Better know a WebDev: Jennifer Fong

Featuring Jennifer Fong, also known as ednapiranha.

2013-05-23-09.45

What do you do at Mozilla?

I am on the Developer Ecosystem team and work on the Developer Hub, build reference apps and help developers build apps for the Firefox Marketplace.

Any fun side projects you’re working on?

Yes – let’s see:

  1. Recently created meatspace, a node module that supports decentralized microblogging functionality and subscriptions. Think of it like RSS as JSON feeds packaged with CRUD on posts.
  2. As a result, I made generaltoast, which is a Node/Express app that uses meatspace and Persona to exemplify a web interface for meatspace. You can check out my current microblog – left side are my posts, right side are my subscriptions to other posts.
  3. For a reference app in the Firefox Marketplace, I made generalnotes which is a note-taking app that syncs to the server when the user is online and logged in. Check out the accompanying blog post.
  4. As an attempt to create an interactive fiction game engine, I created generalstore, which allows a user to create a game with text files, images, audio files and CSS.
  5. I am also organizing the remote-friendly NoodleConf, which is an atypical one day conference where speakers talk about whatever they want. Likely relating to technology. Or possibly what they ate for breakfast.

How did you get started in web development or programming?

High school – Watcom Basic and Turing if we really want to be technical about it. Web development was during my later years. Something something PHP something – Aphex Twin may or may not have been playing in the background.

How did you get involved with Mozilla?

I was riding this unicorn across the great Canadian forests and a rainbow appeared in the sky. I followed to the end of the rainbow and saw a job application to join Mozilla. The unicorn touched the application with its horn. The rest is history.

What’s a funny fail or mistake story you can share?

On my first week at Mozilla, I accidentally did a git push -f to master for http://mozillians.org. I felt so bad, but I got over it pretty quickly.

What’s something you’re particularly proud of?

Having some really weird friends. And ideas.

What’s coming up that you’re excited about?

NoodleConf 2013!

Favourite Rob Ford moment?