From D&D 3.5 to 5.0(5E) - 12 - Skill Checks, Where Did They Go?

One task in 3.5 that I often felt took too much of my time was assigning skill points to skills when my characters gained a level, especially for my highly intelligent rogue.  But that task is eliminated in the 5th edition of D&D.  We still have skills and they work similarly, but they are much simpler to administer.  By virtue of your background, your class, your race and possibly a feat, your character will have a set of skills they are proficient in.  When using a skill, your character will apply your ability score modifier (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA) to your die roll, and then if your character is proficient with the skill used add your proficiency bonus.

This makes leveling up simpler because there are no skill points to assign, though it does reduce some of the flexibility we had in 3.5 for configuring our characters.  I don't know if I like this game rule change yet or not, but I do like simplicity so that I can focus more on role playing.
You will find the best explanation of the skills on pages 174 through 178.  They are listed and described under the relevant ability score first.  So if you want to look up the skill for climb or jump, you would look under the section titled STRENGTH.  This doesn't mean that strength is always the appropriate ability score modifier to apply to jump or climb checks. Based on the situation your DM may use, or allow the character to use, dexterity instead. 
I hope someday to see a list of the actions my character might want to perform such as climb or swim and the suggested ability score to go with it.