Main developer of Nova JavaScript engine and a data-oriented design zealot.
Talks
I've given various talks in various places on various topics. It seems useful to collect them somewhere, so here they are roughly in order from oldest to newest. You can follow them in order and despair at the drop in quality as I get older and sillier.
WTF is FFI?
Video series on Deno FFI in the format of pair-programming sessions.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f9Ujeods5o
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk9PMDJL_10
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptcp4pmHLGI
Foreign function interface, Rust, Deno, and hairy details
A talk given on Deno FFI at a Rust meetup: whoops, wrong topic!
Nova engine for JavaScript
A talk given on Nova JavaScript engine at a Rust meetup: uhhh... still maybe the wrong topic?
Nova JavaScript engine – Exploring a data-oriented engine design
A talk given at Web Engines Hackfest 2024 on Nova JavaScript engine: finally on topic!
USDTs the Wrong Way – From Zero Towards Mediocrity
A talk given at dtrace.conf(2024) on what SystemTap USDTs are, how they work, and how I learned them.
Abusing reborrowing for fun, profit, and a safepoint garbage collector
A talk given at FOSDEM 2025 on Nova's garbage collector and its abuse of the Rust borrow checker.
How to lose weight? – Optimising memory usage in JavaScript and beyond
A talk given at FOSDEM 2025 on how memory optimisations available to the in your everyday JavaScript program, and what sort of benefits you can gain.
Out the cave, off the cliff – data-oriented design in Nova JavaScript engine
A talk on how JavaScript engines implement objects internally, and how Nova JavaScript engine bucks the common wisdom. The talk was first given at Turku University's JavaScript Day on September 19th, 2025. A second version was given at the Sydney Remote Rust Meetup on October 15th, 2025. Neither of these talks got recorded due to mishaps.
A third version was given at JSConf.jp on November 16th, 2025.