Julian Shapiro

julian.com

Founder of NameLayer.com. Creator of Velocity.js

I am the founder of NameLayer.com, a domain name retailer acquired by Techstars in 2011. A frequent writer and speaker, I’ve written for Smashing Magazine, Mozilla, and The Next Web. I was the keynote speaker at the world's largest instructional coding event, TheHTML500.

I am the creator of Velocity.js, one of the web's most popular animation libraries. Velocity is one of the top 100 JavaScript libraries on GitHub (with over 6,000 stars) and it's used by major sites including Tumblr.com, Gap.com, and Orbitz.com. Velocity have been featured on SitePoint, Smashing Magazine, and Mozilla.

I’ve been the recipient of Stripe's Open Source Grant, on which I created Libscore in partnership with both Stripe and DigitalOcean. Libscore is the web's first tool for tracking JavaScript library usage across the Internet. Libscore crawls the top 1 million sites monthly to help open source developers learn where their work is being used. Its launch was covered on The Next Web and Venturebeat.

Questions for Julian Shapiro:

  • What did you do before becoming a developer?

    I've been developing since I was 12. It's what I've always done. In tandem, I've gained experience in film production as a director of commercials and music videos...

  • Where do you turn for inspiration?

    I steal from the best of what I see on Dribbble.

  • Which are your favorite studios, designers or agencies?

    @ludwig from Stripe.com, @thesergie from Webflow.com.

  • Is your city a good place for designers?

    It's SF. Heck yeah.

  • Which technologies are you excited about?

    Web to app conversion tools.

  • Do you listen to music while you work? Describe your playlist.

    Ben Howard. Bonobo.

  • What essential items are in your developer toolbox?

    Mixpanel, Velocity.js, Ractive.js

  • What programming languages do you use? Which did you learn first?

    JavaScript. I started with Visual Basic 6 when I was 12!

  • Where do you see the industry in 5 years?

    Many more people involved. Web design will trend toward a commodity. Apps will have to be exceptional to flourish.

  • Are you working on any personal projects?

    Libscore.com in partnership with Stripe and Digital Ocean.

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