I have always been a fan of Google’s products as I have been made aware of them, and on very few occasions have I had anything negative to say about them. I recently have started using yet another assistance provided by Google that is, in my opinion, one of the single most helpful and creative tools to be offered free of charge to the development community. I speak of none other than the Google Web Toolkit. This Java application allows you to build quite extensive AJAX utilities from within the tool itself. What I find very interesting about it is that you literally write your application in Java (using a GUI that is provided with the Toolkit, if you choose), and the Toolkit then generates your markup and JavaScript for the final product.

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Well, those of you who know me in the least are aware of my passion for video games. I have, quite literally, been a fan of console and PC gaming for as long as I can remember. My parents will vouch for the fact that, on my fifth birthday — before I could read — I was situated in front of our living room TV set with our TI-99/4A on my lap, an open code book next to me, pecking character by character until I had basic animations appearing on the screen. I vaguely remember those details, although I can remember playing games like Parsec and Hunt the Wumpus, but the passion for gaming is still there to this day.

My focus, however, has shifted from simply being a placid gamer to wanting to delve more into the inner workings of the game development process and the gaming industry in general. Choosing web development as a career path has given me more of an insight into the principles that make games work, and I greatly admire those with the knowledge and fortitude to stick with it during the grueling development process, but I still have that burning desire to be more actively involved in the industry in some way.
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Those of you who work on client side scripting to any degree (XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc) are probably well familiar with some of the more common JavaScript libraries available. I have looked into different ones to some degree, and I have used a handful of them extensively before settling on one that best fits my needs. You see, as a developer, I love to conceive of my own patterns and objects to do things within my page, but I also don’t like having to delve into the innermost workings of the DOM unless absolutely necessary for optimization. This being said, for large scale applications like Content Management Systems (CMS) or administration panels, I like to use a themed, all inclusive solution like the Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI) or ExtJS (an extension of YUI); however, when working with basic DOM manipulation or personal projects that require a lightweight solution, I have become enamored with the jQuery library.
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