Google releases free, detailed, HTML/CSS/Javascript encyclopedia by Mark Pilgrim | Hacker News Reader

Javascript encyclopedia by Mark Pilgrim

code.google.com

111 pointsnickb23 comments

Holy cow! Google also released their cross-platform Javascript library that they used for GMail and other projects.

http://code.google.com/p/doctype/source/browse

Awesome.

I haven't seen anything that says that's the library they use for Gmail - I got the impression it was a brand new library produced as part of the Doctype project (partly for educational purposes). Got a link to back that statement up?

Sure, it's in the video interview with Mark Pilgrim

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmUiKaHWjLI

At 5:28 Mark says:

"This is a big part of the encyclopedia and the guide. It is not just having a reference section but having a series of how-to articles and larger case studies. And those articles are primarily based around previously unreleased Google code that we are open sourcing as part of this project. We have a JavaScript library that handles a lot of cross browser compatibility issues which we use in properties like Gmail. If you ever viewed source you've seen the compiled version which isn't terrible readable. As part of this encyclopedia project, we are releasing the original uncompiled version that has the actual comments and real function names and description of things. So that is all open sourced under a OSI approved license."

This is so unbelievably cool, why aren't Google or other blogs playing this up more??

Because there are so many other free Javascript libraries out there?

Sure, but the JS library that powers GMail should at least get a mention and not be buried 6 minutes into a video interview.

I thought GMail was done with Google Web Toolkit. Maybe part of this library was already released as part of GWT in some way?

Considering that Yahoo published their javascript library (or at least some simplified version of it) three years ago, I'm not that impressed.

I can't think of Yahoo app that I use on a daily basis, but there are quite a few Google apps that I use constantly.

Being able to see how Google works their magic is pretty cool.

I use Google's apps a lot more than Yahoo as well. However, it's interesting that you call Google's code "magic." It's probably only magical because until now they haven't released it to the public. Now the magic is gone and it's just a bunch of javascript...

You've got to appreciate a company that constantly produces free services that don't particularly generate revenue. I think the best way to describe this is a wiki for everything html/css/javascript ... Hope it grows and gets embraced

Please, don't take that as altruism.

If Google wants to have the web as the dominant platform, it makes absolute sense to lower as much as possible the barriers of entry to produce Web Applications.

It is just like Joel Spolsky said: they are just taking things that are complementary to their revenue-generating offerings and turning into a commodity. Google releasing something like this is no different than having IBM working on Eclipse.

Barriers to entry seem to be very important on the web.

Some believe building walled gardens is better (ebay, facebook´s social graph). Others believe opening the platform is the way to go (free software). While some others take a mixed approach (google, microsoft, amazon). Time will tell, but it seems it´s tilting towards openness.

It's not free. Google get's your information in return. Almost every service they have is optimized for gathering information.

For example, I bet the first address most users type into Google Earth is their own home address.

W3C has had something like this (but not as clean or easy to navigate) for some time now at: http://www.w3schools.com. I don't the W3C version is editable by others.

However, it's still good to see another place we can look for answers if one place doesn't answer it well enough.

You'd think it's the W3C, but that's because they're about the only other organization that uses "W3."

Those aren't actually done by the W3C; and I've heard there are a lot of errors in them. However, I've used them in the past with no complaints for a quick lookup -- learned XPath from there, for example.

That site has one of the most misleading names on the Web - it has nothing to do with the W3C.

What's most interesting to me about this is the dependency management code in their javascript library. That's a feature that truly sets it apart from the other mainstream javascript libraries. (I'd love to be corrected on this!)

That feature has been in Dojo for years - in fact I'd be very surprised if Google's implementation wasn't directly inspired by Dojo's.

it does look a lot like dojo, thanks.

I wonder what the folks over at Sitepoint think about this, having just recently put up a complete CSS reference and working on one for HTML.

Right now I'd be far more inclined to still use SitePoint's, as their reference appears to be much more through, including extensive commentary on cross-browser differences. See

http://reference.sitepoint.com/css/background http://code.google.com/docreader/#p(doctype)s(doctype)t(BackgroundCSSProperty)

This isn't to say that Google's documentation project won't get better, as it is an open project; but right now it's borderline useless IMHO.

The DHTML bible still rules

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