stratoscope

Thanks for the kind mention, John. (Mike here.)

That sure was a messed-up plugin, though. I was all "Chaining! Shiny!" and I made the json() function a method of $.fn so I could write code like $('#test').foo().json( url, callback ).bar().

But I forgot that I wasn't actually doing anything with the DOM nodes contained in that $('#test') object, so it didn't make sense to use $.fn.json. It should have been a $.json() method like today's $.getJSON().

At least I got to yell first! :-)

But did I learn? Naw... My most popular plugin has turned out to be the jQuery arithmetic plugin, which replaces complicated JavaScript expressions with clean, familiar jQuery chains. It's highly regarded on Stack Overflow!

It was even before the early days! I think it was still just Steve and Woz, and I didn't even get to meet Woz. So "fired" may be overstating it a bit, just as "working for" would have been a loose concept at that point. :-)

Flimsy stuff for an AMA, but if people are curious I'll be happy to post the story.

The Apple story? John has (hopefully) forgotten the sad details, and I shouldn't take over his AMA unless he wants me to recount it here.

I suppose I could do an "I may have been the first guy Steve Jobs ever fired" AMA? :-)

OK! I got busy and wrote up the story. It's posted here:

I was one of the first people Steve Jobs ever fired. I may not have answers, but you can ask anyway!

Enjoy! :-)