

Show HN: JSPkg.com - host javascript packages (like gemcutter for js) - JangoSteve
http://jspkg.com/

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JangoSteve
I'll try to keep this short, since I'd like to get people's first impressions
from the site itself, but I'll give a little background. I started building
this in May. Since plugins.jquery.com was shut down a week and a half ago, I
pushed it live so I could have somewhere to host my own plugins.

Even though it's smart enough to single out jquery plugins and label them as
such, my stance is that all plugins are just scripts with a dependency on some
library. So this site is meant to be a host for ALL javascript projects,
whether they're libraries, frameworks, plugins, or standalone scripts, and
whether they're front-end or back-end.

It follows the CommonJS spec for reading data from a package.json file, but
also provides on-the-fly creation for projects that don't have one (with a
package.json generator).

Any and all feedback welcome. For the curious, it's a Rails 3.1 app with a js-
heavy front-end (being on the jquery-rails / jquery-ujs team, it's what I know
best), though I've been considering switching the package uploader and
processor mechanism to node.

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vjeux
What would be awesome of you is to generate a .js instead of a zip.

For example I could include <script
src="jspkg.org/coffeescript/xregexp/.../.js"> and it would make a single .js
file with all the dependencies sorted out.

If you could make it work with npm packages that would be even more awesome :)

~~~
JangoSteve
Thanks for the feedback, that's definitely in the plans, for building out
basically a cdn where you can directly link to the files. I just need to
figure out how that works with scripts that require css, images, etc.

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LocalPCGuy
I had a little sneak peak at this site, and still think it's very cool. One of
the cool things is that after this was pushed live, the jQuery team announced
that they were updating the plugins.jquery.com site and many of the features
were very similar.

Continue to market it as library agnostic - I think that is one of the key
differentiators of this site. The idea of a CDN is very cool as well, although
I'd worry about bandwidth costs doing something like that. Maybe that is the
premium version in a freemium model? (No idea if you plan to make this a
commercial venture at some point.)

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chaselee
I think it's important we have a host for ALL javascript projects, not just
jQuery projects, and I think this site does a pretty damn good job of getting
us there. Very nice work.

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joshmanders
Awesome work, looks good so far.

