Yahoo and the Front End Developer.

I've been a big fan of Yahoo's developer site (http://developer.yahoo.com/) Beyond their excellent javascript library, they also have lots of good video content ranging from deep javascript tips to advice on developing for screen readers.

It's really interesting to see how important front end technologies have become again. I started out as a front end developer in the 90s. I was coming from a print background and my skills with Photoshop were more important than coding in a time when sites tended to be static html pages. As the technology improved and site became more sophisticated I began doing more and more backend coding, first with php then later with java and .NET.

In the last couple of years, Ajax and Flash have brought the frontend back into the spotlight. Yahoo dev posted a blog entry about how frontend development has become complicated enough and important enough that they have developed a whole large-scale training process to make sure they have the talent they need. I find it really interesting both because I really like front end development and because it reflects the growing importance of user experience and interface design.