John Resig, creator of the web’s most popular javascript library, jQuery, just announced that he’s leaving the Mozilla Foundation and joining online education powerhouse Khan Academy. Resig worked at Mozilla for more than 4 years, joining in January 2007 as a Javascript Evangelist after leaving a position as a developer on the One Laptop Per Child Project.
He’ll continue working on jQuery at Khan, as well as the organization’s other Open Source efforts and its forthcoming iPad app. JQuery Mobile was released this Fall; ReadWriteWeb’s Sarah Perez said it “may have a major impact on mobile Web development.”
Neither station is without its critics, of course. Bob Remeika, a developer at Yammer, penned a critique this Spring titled JQUERY IS FOR N00BS. Likewise, Khan Academy has won wide accolades for its thousands of educational videos on YouTube, but was called last month “an indictment of education” by another YouTube video-posting teacher, high school educator Frank Noschese. The underlying criticism in that post was called “valid” by education thought leader Stephen Downes.
Resig said on Twitter this morning that there is a plan for Khan to add computer programming videos to its offerings in the future. He also said he’ll be doing a Question and Answer session on Reddit tomorrow.
