The Sheriff Is Back In Town; Congrats to Joe Hewitt
Posted by Dion Almaer 9 months ago on developer_tools
I have never been as excited about someone leaving a company as hearing that Joe Hewitt has moved on for Facebook to become an independent developer. He talks about how great Facebook has been to him, but this is when developers should get the most excited:
It’s been more than five years since I made Firebug, and though I stopped working on it long ago, I’ve continued thinking about it nearly every day since. It was probably the most gratifying project I’ve ever worked on. Knowing that I was helping developers solve hard problems, work more efficiently, and create awesome things gave me an energy and happiness that was unmatched.
My mind is still full of ideas for tools of all kinds: tools for writers, designers, programmers, whatever. Wherever people are using computers to turn their ideas into reality, I want to help. I’ve spent the last four years of my career working on a very different kind of software. At Facebook, I’ve gotten to build communications tools that reach hundreds of millions of people. I’ve had the honor of seeing people, even my own parents, using my apps while walking down the street, in restaurants, on trains, in planes and everywhere I go. Still, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Firebug.
Technologies have a way of growing faster than the ecosystem of tools needed to support them. Over the last four years, we’ve seen the rise of mobile apps, the cloud, and now HTML5. Most developers building on these new platforms are using the previous generations of tools along with a mix of ad-hoc scripts and web apps to get things done. It works, but it is far from ideal. In fact, it reminds me a lot of the Ajax climate back in 2006 when I decided to make Firebug.
And so, I’m independent now, and I’m going to pour myself into understanding the needs of modern developers and designers, and creating software to fill those needs. There are so many opportunities that I can’t even predict what I will end up building, but I am pretty sure I know where I am going to start. I can’t wait.
I can’t wait to see what Joe comes up with. Over the last few years I have had the pleasure to meetup and chat shop with Joe every now and then. It is always a pleasure, and I always leave feeling great about the future. There are many people I hope to work with one day, and Joe is at the top of the list.