I’ve teased.

I’ve threatened.

I’ve promised.

The Cujo Project is finally underway.

• 14 years of RIA / web app development…
• 70+ web-based projects designed for demanding customers such as Nissan, Walmart, Pfizer…
• 6 years of OO javascript…
• Lead engineer on three powerful, proprietary javascript frameworks…

You’d think those credentials would qualify me to be the lead committer for the ultimate open-source platform for building ultra-rich, in-browser applications.

But you’d be wrong.

The web is progressing so fast. I sincerely believe that nobody — not even the grandfather of javascript, Douglas Crockford — can claim to have more than a few years of pertinent web experience. (He might disagree, of course.)

For my part, it’s only been a few years since I discovered — I mean really discovered — functional javascript. OOCSS is next on my list of techniques to master.

Unless you’ve devoted several years of your life to javascript and css, you can’t even begin to imagine how friggin smart their creators were. If you don’t understand what I’m talking about — if you don’t agree that javascript and css are truly amazing creations — then you’re simply unenlightened.

I, too, was once unenlightened.

To be fair, javascript and css have had several warts and still have a few today. Speed was once a big problem. Quirky, buggy, or non-existent feature support in major browsers was also a major setback.

But those days are over. Javascript 1.6 (the version almost fully supported by the laggard, IE8) is already sufficient to build world-class applications (IMHO), and ECMAScript5 (javascript 2.0?) is right around the corner. CSS3 has added box-flex, transitions, and animations, which are critical for in-browser MVC (more on this in a future article!). HTML5, of course, adds so many application-oriented features, I can’t even start to list them here (but you can go here).

This stuff is moving way too fast for anybody to fully grok the repercussions on rich web apps. No, instead I think it’s my passion and persistence that will help me the most.

But it’ll also be my understanding of the needs of all of the different roles involved in the development of web apps: Front-End Engineers, UX Designers, Visual Designers, Quality Assurance Technicians. This is where current attempts at in-browser MVC frameworks fail the hardest and why Cujo is different.

Stay tuned. Cujo is coming.

And it won’t bite.