The more I learn about web development, the I learn that it is a very good time to start. What I mean is that much of the “wandering around in the wilderness” has been done and what lies ahead is much more exciting and wholly rewarding.
Reading mostly books on the subject, I have come to understand that my toolbox has in it, not one, but many fascinating and versatile tools. From the ordinary HTML to CSS, and more interestingly, from JavaScript to xml, there seems to be a marriage of technologies and therefore a myriad of choices.
So, when I say it’s hard, I say this only because it presents a student with soo many choices that it becomes a challenge just to find your own unique way through it. That’s what makes it so cool for me, someone who is completely self taught and still going.

Here I go. From my humble beginnings scripting what I called “helper apps” for Flash 8 at the animation studio where I work during the day, I am now diving head first into JavaScript and, more specifically, AJAX. The ultimate goal would be to create my own Web Apps and deploy them on my site, www.douthwright.com.
I’ll chronicle my experience here in this blog for those of you who are interested in doing the same. Hopefully some experienced people out there might offer some advice even. I am always open to ideas.
Well, I’m off to go meet a friend for coffee who has been instrumental in leading me down this new and scary path. Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Not that “Thirty-something” is old, but their quite a few who are younger and know a great deal more about this stuff than I. Oh well, this story isn’t about them is it?
G-nite folks.