Since most of the hits to my site will probably be following a search for either "Leggetter" or "JavaScript" I thought that I had best post something about the latter of these topics.
My knowledge of JavaScript has been gained by working for companies that have used Web Technologies in their products. My first job was in London back in 2001 and at this time I would guess that JavaScript would not have been classed as a mainstream programming language. I guess that many would still not think of it as mainstream but it certainly has become more prominent with the use of AJAX. Its common uses back in 2001 would have been to create rollover effects or dynamically write page content on the client-side usingdocument.write. However, the company that I worked for used it as a main language to develop a product to deliver real-time financial data in a browser to the PC desktop. So, over my two years at this company my knowledge of this language grew considerably.
As well as using JavaScript to develop my employers products I used it in developing my own small web applications, web sites and small to medium bits of functionality for friends sites or web applications. I also used to contribute to "comp.lang.javascript" and a few forums but as the popularity of the language increased as did the number of people who wanted to ask and solve JavaScript questions. Also, as the number of JavaScript users increased the number of simply solved questions were asked. It became a challange in itself to find that challanging DHTML/JavaScript question. With the JavaScript community getting so crowded I decided to leave the newsgroups and forums to those with a bit more spare time.
Even though I had decided to leave the forums alone it did not mean that I left JavaScriptalone. Indeed I made a move north to Scotland to work for a small company that used JavaScript and DHTML to deliver simulations of a variety of real life applications. These simulation ran purely in a browser and used a very clever combination of JavaScript, HTML, DTHML and Java to deliver high quality simulation products to large financial service companies. Whilst at this company my knowledge of cross-browser compatibility issues increased considerably.
Two years on I made the decision to make a move to a company that did not use JavaScript as its primary development language. At the very same time as I had made my decision to move on the idea of AJAX came about and JavaScript took another leap in popularity. Whether or not its popularity will mean that my current company come up with more ideas on how to use JavaScript in the same guise as Google Maps is yet to be seen.
So, what is the point in this post? Well, I suppose it has turned into a mini career biography and also has proven that a career in Software Engineering can be acheived using JavaScript as a primary language - although it has to be said that I was quite lucky that my first two companies were so specialised in its use. I guess the point is also to highlight that I'm very experienced in the use of this language so if anybody has any questions about a piece of JavaScript code, a "How To" question or a piece of contract work that they need an experienced JavaScript/DHTML developer to take on they should get in touch with me.
A final note that I would like to make is that during my career I have gained experience in a variety of other languages as well as general software engineering skills. The languages that I now consider myself very capable of using are:
JavaScript
DHTML
SQL
C#
Java
PHP
VBScript
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