Google, of late, has been stepping up its public contributions to the world of frontend engineering: Gears, GWT, Doctype, and Google I/O are all manifestations of this assertive public disposition. And it’s no surprise that some of this engagement with the discipline stems from the hiring last year of Ajaxian cofounder Dion Almaer. You see Dion’s leadership in events like I/O, but you also see his philosophy in steps like Google’s hosting of major JavaScript libraries on Google’s CDN…not just Google’s library, but a cross-section of commonly used kits are freely hosted. (Note: YUI is not on this list yet, but Dion tells us it will be soon; in the meantime, YUI is freely hosted on Yahoo’s CDN.)

Dion joined us at Yahoo a few weeks ago for us for a special F2E-focused tech talk about what he and his colleagues are excited about these days — from front (Gears) to back (Google App Engine). As you’d expect from Google, these are smart teams taking on challenging problems and delivering in a big way.