Ugly Doll at the Ajax Experience

September 30, 2008 1:45 pm | 3 Comments

My six year old daughter snuck her purple hippo in my bag when I went to SXSW in February. It provided a way for us to stay in touch even with time zone differences and busy schedules. I would take pictures of the purple hippo with my iPhone and email them back home. She and the rest of the family could see where the purple hippo was at the conference, and it was likely I was there, too. The photos made for a fun blog post: Purple Hippo at SXSW.

When I arrived at The Ajax Experience, I found her Ugly Doll at the bottom of my suitcase. I smiled. Let the games begin.

First things first, Ugly Doll checked to see if there was free wifi in the room. Answer? Negative. $12.95 later and we started catching up on email. It was late so Ugly Doll checked out the bed. Verdict? Thumbs up.

The first day was great – I attended talks from beginning to end (rare for me). Ben and Dion started with an intro Ajax tutorial – nice way to ease into the morning. John Resig followed with a comparison of jQuery, Dojo, MooTools, Prototype, and YUI – an even-handed comparison useful for anyone starting the selection process. Ben and Dion had an informative and fun romp through the Ajax Universe. This was the best talk of the day for me. They spiced it up by switching speakers based on a timer that went off at random intervals every 10 seconds to 2 minutes. Ojan Vafai presented Google Chrome. The day ended with PPK leading a panel comprised of representatives from the major JavaScript libraries: John Resig (jQuery), Dylan Schiemann (Dojo), Christian Heilmann (YUI), and Andrew Dupont (Prototype).

Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith, Christian Heilmann, John Resig.

The highlight of the second day were the lightning talks. Stoyan Stefanov and Nicole Sullivan announced Smush it – an image optimization tool that looks extremely useful. I did a talk about Episodes – a proposal for measuring performance in Web 2.0 apps. Bill Scott talked about the upcoming release of the Netflix API, and Gavin Doughtie talked about interviewing JavaScript gurus. Brendan Eich delivered a keynote on JavaScript speed, and PPK had a good presentation on browser incompatability patterns.

Bill Scott, Gavin Doughtie, Doug Crockford.

There’s still another day of TAE remaining, but I have to get this post out today to leave room for a new post tomorrow. I’m looking forward to Ask The Experts with Brendan Eich, Douglas Crockford, John Resig, Joe Walker and Dylan Schiemann. On Wednesday I deliver a talk that includes a release of a new tool. Stay tuned!

3 Responses to Ugly Doll at the Ajax Experience

  1. That is so cute :D

  2. Great meeting you at the conference, even though I missed Ugly Doll.

  3. THE UGLY DOLLS ARE SO CUTE!