I've been keeping a dirty little secret: in spite of all the fuss about web applications that can do what only desktop apps could, "Web 2.0" and Ajax, I have until recently been pretty ignorant of JavaScript, DHTML, the DOM and even CSS (I was using tables for layout until this year!). The shame isn't just mine; a lot of programmers to whom I've spoken have said "Yeah, me too."

Steve Yegge was in the same situation and he's been doing what I've been doing: self-training in JavaScript, Ajax and DHTML. He's written some notes and based on this experience in a blog entry titled Dreaming in Browser Swamp. He makes some interesting observations, my favourite of which is:

JavaScript is probably the most important language in the world today. Funny, huh? You'd think it would be Java or C++ or something. But I think it just might be JavaScript.