Google's AJAX API Playground is a new official way for Google to show JavaScript samples to application developers. The Google AJAX API Playground is built on Google App Engine and is open-sourced under an Apache 2.0 license.Google has introduced a new way for developers to kick the tires on its
JavaScript APIs: the Google AJAX API
Playground.
In
a Jan. 21 blog post about the Google AJAX API Playground, Google Developer
Programs Engineer Ben Lisbakken said, "I have been working on this in
my 20% time and today I am proud to announce that we are launching the AJAX API
Playground as the official way that Google will show JavaScript samples!"
Google gives its developers 20 percent of their time free to pursue projects
other than those they do for work.
Explaining his impetus for creating the Playground, Lisbakken said:
For me, documentation isn't always
enough to learn about APIs; I need examples that I can play with. That's why I
started a fun project recentlya tool for teaching developers how to use
Google's JavaScript APIs: the AJAXAPI Playground.
Lisbakken said the Google AJAX API
Playground has more than 170 samples for eight Google JavaScript APIs: Maps,
Search, Feeds, Calendar, Visualization, Language, Blogger, Libraries and Earth.
Developers can run and edit these samples to see the APIs Google has to offer
and which ones they may want to use.
The Google AJAX API Playground is built
on Google App Engine, Lisbakken said, and the code is open-sourced under an
Apache 2.0 license.
Dion Almaer, co-founder of Ajaxian.com and a former
Google colleague of Lisbakken's, said Lisbakken "has done a really nice
job creating a Google Ajax API Playground, an area that allows you to touch and feel
the APIs in real time ... Very nice indeed."