Coding In Paradise

Dojo has been good to me. I remember in 2005 when I was a whee JavaScript programmer hacking around with weird stuff like AMASS to do client-side storage when Alex Russell contacted me and asked me to port the work over to Dojo. I was blown away; what an opportunity! I had heard of Dojo but never thought I would get the chance to contribute.

Being a part of the Dojo project has been an amazing opportunity for me. Dojo Storage helped legitimize the idea of doing client-side storage, and the experience working on it helped shape parts of the HTML5 Local Storage API when it was being developed. Creating Dojo Offline went from crazy prototype idea to real shipping code thanks to SitePen and Google, and led to my involvement with Gears and also helped shape aspects of the HTML5 Offline work.

And what an awesome community Dojo is! I got a chance to meet fellow JavaScript hackers who had a mad gleam in their eye on trying out some interesting new scheme to try out in the browser. I consider many Dojo-ites close friends and colleagues and continue enjoying meeting up and scheming strange browser ideas.

The last year and a half, though, I really haven't been able to be a part of the Dojo community, and I don't see that changing. Dojo Storage and Dojo Offline are being used by real users and real sites but I simply haven't had the bandwidth to fix important bugs or add new functionality. There comes a time when an open source programmer has to admit that they simply can't juggle so many balls in the air at once.

I've essentially left the Dojo community the last year and a half but consider this blog post more formal. Other things have swept me up and forced my time. I can no longer maintain Dojo Storage and Dojo Offline. This is a great chance for the users and developers who use both of these packages to step up to maintain them and continue developing them; I pass the baton to you. You won't be sorry being a part of Dojo; I know I haven't.

I wish I was good at everything; I'm obviously not ;) The particular thing I'm good at is coming up with some strange new idea, then doing several passes of engineering and work to make it real and bring it to a shippable state and get it past the 'giggle factor'. I've done this with things like Really Simple History, coworking, and more. I'm good at the 0.1, 1.0, and 2.0 phases. Past that, I'm not particularly good. I guess the wisdom of 'old age' is accepting your strengths and weaknesses ;)

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Labels: dojo, dojo offline toolkit, dojo storage