10 Years

A full decade ago I was a rookie web developer at a small web shop in Madison, Wisconsin.  When I left college, all I knew was CSS layouts and confirmation boxes.  In short:  I was as green as could be, much greener that kids coming out of college today.  That meant a lot of searches for solving edge case problems -- especially when you consider I needed IE6 hacks in those days.  Tired of finding solutions on page 8 of sketchy forums, and tired of being at a job where I needed those fixes, I started the BluDice blog.  The name didn't catch so I changed it to David Walsh Blog.

The more I wrote, the better I felt about myself, my skills, and my contribution back to the web developer community.  I quickly found myself in love with MooTools; after writing about MooTools for several months, I was approached by Aaron Newton to join the MooTools team -- one of the best moments and decisions of my life.

Soon after I joined MooTools I was noticed by SitePen -- another decision that I look back on fondly.  At SitePen I was exposed to the deep "internals" of JavaScript, working with other amazing JavaScript developers to solve very complex problems.

Another two years later I was poached by Mozilla -- the dream job I had wanted since I was a 16 year old kid toying with this new "Mozilla" browser.  Thanks to Mozilla I've been able to visit London, Paris, Toronto, Sao Paulo, and a host of big cities in the United States.  I've worked with some of the brightest minds in web development and I even got to buy the creator of JavaScript a drink!

I couldn't have made these dreams come true without this blog.  I owe this blog everything.

Thank you

I cannot thank all of you, my readers, enough for the support.  You've taught me much more than I could have ever taught you.  I've learned to have thicker skin, to think more outside the box, and to be a better communicator.  You've improved my JavaScript and CSS skills and continued to encourage me when my self-confidence was shot.  You've changed my life and I'll never forget that.  I promise to keep writing if you all will keep reading.

I'd also like to thank my sponsors for believing and investing in me.  You'll never know the impact that support has made for my family.

Ten years.  Thank you.