I am appreciating JavaScript more

For years, I have been turning down occasional offers of work writing JavaScript because I did not like the technology (mostly because of browser compatibility issues) and did not want to spend the time to become an expert.

Well, browser compatibility issues still exist, but I am looking at great light-weight JavaScript applications (like GMail) and utilities (like xTree, and JSpell as used by blogger.com), and I am starting to appreciate JavaScript as a platform tool. For most of my work, I still really enjoy using server side Java, but I am keeping a more open mind to also using more JavaScript to cut down the communication requirements between browser and server.