Webmasters, Full Stack Developers, and Other Legendary Creatures

The history of software is rich with extraordinary individuals whose knowledge of their systems was unrivalled. But in 2016, where distributed systems and machine learning are ubiquitous and the average web app uses two frameworks, four languages and six caching layers, does it make any sense to talk about full stack developers? Are we clinging to outdated paradigms, nostalgic for the days when one person really could know all the answers, or does overspecialisation pose a genuine threat to the established conventions of software development? And if it does, should we resist it - or welcome it as a change that's long overdue?

It's 25 years since Tim Berners-Lee created the first web page. In this talk, we'll look at the history of the World Wide Web, exploring what we've learned - and forgotten - along the way. We'll reflect on a quarter-century of writing code, designing systems, building teams and shipping products, and we'll take a speculative look at the next 25 years of the web.