My suppositions was always that he had help with frontend code. He's not a professional programmer; he's a rocket scientist. Also, a _lot_ of primetime frontend web engineering requires a very specific and deep knowledge of javascript and compatibility issues. (N.b.: by primetime I mean when your application is going to be viewed live by a bunch of laymen watching the colbert report, or etc.)
"He's not a professional programmer; he's a rocket scientist"
Um... he interned at NASA and worked for them for six months after graduating as an independent roboticist contractor. He's been working on xkcd professionally, full time, for 8 years since then.
I'm sure Monroe had plenty of time to do many things. Perhaps javascript is less interesting to him than formulating answers to what-if submissions. There's nothing wrong with asking experts to assist in their area of expertise.
Of course there's nothing wrong. My only point is quite the opposite.
The post I was responding to suggested "Since he is a rocket scientist, it is unlikely that he would be able to code the frontend, and would require help", which is absurd. Given Mr. Munroes obvious interest in programming and computers, (see comics:
) it was entirely reasonable to believe that he had picked up enough experience to code the javascript frontends.
There is simply no reason to pigeon hole the man as a "Rocket Scientist", especially given the fact he was a roboticist previously (which, shockingly enough, tends to involve programming). He has shown a wide variety of interests, and if he demonstrated an ability to code frontend javascript, I would not be surprised.
I knew he had a developer working with him for Time and such (and now I know who the dev is!), and I knew he had a server person too. The phrase "folks at xkcd" threw me off a bit though - to me it implies a whole team.
Is there an xkcd team as such? It would be good to read a bit more about them, if there's any info available.