At work I’ve started working with ExtJS for the user interface for the web application I’m helping develop.  I’ve always had reservations about using Javascript.  Or rather I’ve always hated dealing with inconsistencies in DOM handling in browsers.  Whenever I deal with CSS, I always hate dealing with cross-browser checking.  Fortunately with increased popularity of Gecko-based browsers (Mozilla Firefox) and Webkit-based browsers (Google Chrome), I have to deal with headaches of a browser incompatibilities less often.  However writing pure Javascript can be a bit daunting, and a library like JQuery or ExtJS comes in handy.  So I’m still not sold on the concept of building everything in a RIA (Rich Internet Application) context.  However using a Javascript library sure makes my website coding-hacking more palatable.