

Google releases free, detailed, HTML/CSS/Javascript encyclopedia by Mark Pilgrim - nickb
http://code.google.com/doctype/

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aschobel
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.

~~~
simonw
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?

~~~
aschobel
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??

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

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

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redorb
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

~~~
rglullis
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.

~~~
joseakle
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.

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melvinram
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.

~~~
jraines
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.

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smhinsey
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!)

~~~
simonw
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.

~~~
smhinsey
it does look a lot like dojo, thanks.

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tdavis
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.

~~~
rufo
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.

------
wallflower
The DHTML bible still rules

