About
There are lots of Web sites out there you could read; so, why should you read this one?
Who is Jeff Watkins?
First of all, I’m a nerd. Sometimes it doesn’t show, but the moment a discussion about one of my favourite technologies starts it’s like a fever comes over me and I have to take part.
I’ve been a nerd all my life: My first software development job was in High School writing Intel 80386 protected-mode assembly for an embedded system. Yeah. Nerd.
Whether you believe it or not, the second computer language I learned (after BASIC) was Lisp. I still have nightmares about parenthesis swarming out of my closets and devouring me. I learned C++ before I learned C. And Smalltalk before either of them.
Back in 1995, I was hired by a small software company in Seattle to build a Web version of their flagship application — it turns out to have been one of the first Web applications ever written. I didn’t think up the idea of writing a Web application, but I count myself lucky to have been involved.
Since then, I’ve drifted into creating user interfaces for Web and Windows applications. I’m definitely no Web designer (I think this Web site speaks to that), but I know my way around Photoshop and understand way more about CSS and design than you’d expect from someone who adores JavaScript.
What’s Nerd About?
This site really serves two purposes. First, it gives me a venue to vent my frustration with stupid software and hardware (The Searing Pain of Using Windows, A Long Way to Go to Release, Microsoft Still Doesn’t Get Standards, and Who Designs These Things?). Second, I’ve attempted to document some of the thorny solutions to the problems I’ve encountered developing cool UIs (Building Mozilla SpiderMonkey for Mac OS X, Going Global, and Safari Can’t REST).
If along the way I can help someone avoid the problems I encountered, that’s so cool.
Of course, it would be great if I had a portfolio of some of the cool applications I’ve built, but none of the recent ones have been public facing. That means if I so much as post a screen capture, I’ll find my butt in court. I’m working on this problem…