My name is David Walsh and I’m a 27 year old Web Developer living in Madison, WI. I’m a self-taught developer that is obsessed with learning everything there is to know about front-end web development. My expertise is in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP. I work with jQuery, MooTools, and Dojo on a daily basis. I don’t design the websites, I make them work.

My first exposure to MooTools involved a project that required smoothly animated elements. I found jQuery and its animations where laboring to say the least. MooTools’ animations were as smooth, efficient, and the the syntax was logical. From there I was hooked. I started a blog to share my findings and experimentations. I got better MooTools and started getting noticed by the community. A few commits and dozens of blog posts later, I was asked to join the MooTools team. Joining the MooTools team is one of the proudest moments of my career.

MooTools is special for several reasons. The MooTools API is as coherent and logical as you will find in a framework of any language. The code is as well written as you’ll find. MooTools is modular, efficient, and provides an outstanding inheritance pattern. The MooTools team cares about its community. MooTools isn’t about marketing itself and begging for attention – MooTools is about outstanding code to create dynamic, fast websites. MooTools is magic!

Per the framework itself, I always have two goals: making the community aware of new features and strategies, and creating useful, well-coded plugins to display the power of MooTools. I don’t spend much time on committing to the repository other than quick fixes and documentation updates – my strength is spreading the good word Moo.

I work for SitePen so I occasionally commit quick fixes to the Dojo Toolkit. I write exclusively about open source projects on my blog, and give my code away for free.

I work so hard because I love JavaScript, MooTools, and its community. Let’s face it – we’ve all faced a technical problem that we’ve needed to scour the internet to figure out. Most people find their solution and move on. I’ve vowed not to do that – any solution to a complex problem that I find ends up on my blog so that other people don’t need to suffer the same pain that I did.

Per the MooTools project specifically, I strive so hard because I’m so passionate about the project. I love the codebase, respect the hell out of the developers creating the code, and appreciate the MooTools community. I could write a million blog posts about MooTools and not feel I’ve given as much to the project as its given me. MooTools FTW.

The motive behind writing code to accomplish similar tasks with each framework is to show my readers that, in the end, it’s just JavaScript. Dojo, MooTools, and jQuery are very different but in the end, they’re just an abstraction of JavaScript patterns and APIs. I also do it to show developers the different coding patterns available and the differences in syntax.

What’s important, more so than preferring one framework over another, is find the framework that best fits a project. You can love jQuery but what if it’s not a great match for a specific project? You’d be wasting time using it. In the end though, if all things are equal, I’d use MooTools before any other project. Extendible, compact, logical… those are what MooTools is all about.

The future is looking up! Let’s be honest: the reason we create (and use) CSS and JavaScript frameworks is because the tools we need aren’t available at the present time. HTML5’s markup rules bring us back to a more common-sense approach, and its new JavaScript APIs like WebSocket, classList, and storage APIs are outstanding. V8 and server-side JavaScript are also exciting – imagine writing and entire website, front and back-end, in just JavaScript! MooTools works on both the server and client side which is even more exciting! WebKit-based browsers continue to amaze me – the capabilities they provide, especially with CSS animation, are percolating. Using CSS-driven animations instead of JavaScript animation will lead to faster, smoother interfaces. I’m excited to see what’s next!

I would like to see some of the MooTools 2.0 features incorporated ASAP, including CSS animations and the unified Fx timer. These features have been coded but not implemented so as to not create such a jump in upgrading. There are many other features in the 2.0wip branch that I would love to see implemented. Unfortunately, now is not the best time to release these features due to other API changes that would be required.

I owe much of my career advancement to MooTools. MooTools ignited a fire the fire which made me dedicate my career to JavaScript and front-end development. I’d likely be working at an average Web Development shop, waiting for the clock to hit 5:00.

Like other web technologies, MooTools’s future is nothing but up. Our development team continues to grow, as does our loyal, intelligent community. As far as features I’d like to see, I’d love to see a Dijit (Dojo Toolkit) UI competitor created for MooTools. I’m also hopeful that the Forge continues to grow at its current pace – it’s a treasure chest of great MooTools plugins!

My tip would be this: when you create a plugin/class, take a step back and ask yourself:
Can I make this class more generic so that it could be used for other purposes?
If so, create that base class and use MooTools’s Extend/Implements methods to create your more specific class. MooTools is founded on flexibility – learn how to properly use its inheritance methods and you’ll be an unstoppable programming force.

This will sound insanely vain but I have to say my own. I refer to my own website often to grab code I’ve posted in the past. I also get user feedback so I can improve my code. I also love the MooTools Forge – its code holds the value of Fort Knox.

A few people you should really be following if you’re into MooTools, jQuery, or just JavaScript in general:

Ryan Florence (http://ryanflorence.com/) – Ryan’s an outstanding JavaScript developer that writes interesting tutorials about jQuery, MooTools, and CSS animation. He’s the creator of MooTools SlideShow, Moo4q, and MooTools’ pub/sub plugin: Channels.

Kris Zyp (http://twitter.com/kriszyp) – Kris is a Dojo committer, author of the JSON Schema spec, and creator of Persevere, a server-side JSON technology. Kris is a JSON guru, server-side expert, and overall JavaScript nut.

There are a billion more plugins left for me to write! I’m hoping to write a Facebook photo-tagging clone soon, as well as anything else I see that tickles my fancy. Wherever there’s an idea there’s a MooTools plugin to write. There are only two limitations to MooTools plugin creation: inspiration and time. I could write MooTools plugins forever!

I’m not big into self-promotion, but a few of my more popular posts and MooTools plugins include:

• ScrollSpy – A MooTools plugin which monitors scrolling to fire events based on page position.
• LightFace – A Facebook Lightbox clone which handles AJAX, IFrames, Images, and more.

If you want to see what I’m all about, visit my blog: http://davidwalsh.name

‘Ninja’ is a lame term to try to make JavaScript development seem exciting to outsiders. In any event, the boom in JavaScript popularity is nothing but exciting. More bright minds to solve client side problems is a boost to JavaScript development and provides more ideas to the development pool. JavaScript is the future of web development.