Thursday, November 01, 2007

My How We've Grown



In 2005 we launched Google Code to provide a home for our developer and open source programs. Two years, dozens of new products and new programs, and one major redesign later, Google Code is bigger and more dynamic than ever. With today's relaunch we've added a new search auto-complete feature (to help you find your favorite products with a keystroke or two in the search box), an expanded and improved search results page, a cleaner and more comprehensive site directory, new blog and group gadgets, and a simplified and unified look and feel for product documentation.

To get a sense of how far things have come you can take a look at the first version of Google Code, back when the whole site almost fit on one page. Today we have thousands and thousands of pages of content on Google Code, and we've added the new site directory and new search features to help you navigate them.

One of the most exciting things about the redesign is that everything you see here was built using technology and APIs that are available to everyone. The pages we're serving don't rely on any secret back-end tricks; the site is built on plain HTML, JavaScript and CSS, each using our public APIs. In fact, all of the techniques used on Google Code can be duplicated on your own site.

For example, the search results pages use a combination of the AJAX Search API and Custom Search Engines. The homepage gadgets use the AJAX Feed API and Google Reader feeds. The videos are powered by the YouTube API, the blogs by the Blogger API, the events powered by the Google Calendar API, the metrics by Google Analytics, the forums by Google Groups, etc., etc.. And we're pleased to use jQuery, the wonderful open source JavaScript library (not ours, we're just fans), to help power each page. Stay tuned -- over the upcoming weeks we'll offer detailed articles and tutorials about how we built the various parts of Google Code using open technologies.

But the best thing about Google Code hasn't changed: And that's you, the developer, our never-ending source of inspiration. Your projects provide countless examples for the Featured Projects feeds, your words and wisdom power the developer groups, and your accomplishments and ideas never cease to amaze us with the possibilities and potential for a better web. This redesign was for you, and I want to personally thank all of you for being such an integral part of Google Code. Together we're capable of doing something very special.

Please join us on the Google Code Blog, (where we'll be enabling comments for this and future posts), and let us know where you're headed and how we can help you get there.

7 comments:

  1. First!

    Just kidding.

    I'm really digging what you guys are doing here. Sourceforge had so much potential and really squandered a huge opportunity. I'm so relieved to have a reliable, easy to use solution for hosting open source projects. This is about as close to CivicForge as I've seen.

    Keep up the awesome work.

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  2. What about adding Mondrian as part of Google Project Hosting for FOSS software. That would be awesome.

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  3. Wow, the new code.google.com looks great! I especially like that you built it using normal web tech + Google APIs yourself -- that's very recursive of you :)

    Best,
    Brad

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  4. I really wish my students could use Google Code for their class projects --- it'd be great way for them to learn modern web-based collaboration tools --- but thanks to the USA PATRIOT Act, it's illegal :-( (I'm a resident of Ontario; like many other jurisdictions, our privacy protection laws don't allow us to store sensitive material, including anything used for grading, in jurisdictions with weaker privacy laws. Thanks to PATRIOT's secret warrant provisions, that includes the US, or servers run by subsidiaries of American companies operating overseas.)

    So, any chance of opening up Google Code so that we can install and run it locally?

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  5. Google in general has so many changes going on that it is hard to keep up. But your site really does help.

    Congratulations on the new site, it looks great, and I'll continue to watch what you have started here.

    Keep up the good work.

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  6. We would like to open our Cost Free Economics patent pending technology through the opensocial platform. Cost Free Economics, a patent pending economic technology that changes commerce as we know it can convert all social networking sites to real purpose consumer benefit business models. An opensocial widget that gives access to any social networking consumer to this “save all you spend ” economics process would create an nstoppable, perpetual growth economic engine that would benefit all parties. The various social networks could still grow their distinctive user base and be united through opensocial in a common goal of consumer benefits and strong economic growth. Users, the sites and the markets will all benefit as this shopcostfree.com economic technology goes mainstream.

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  7. DeWitt, on behalf of the jQuery team, I'd like to congratulate you guys on the relaunch and also let you know that we're here to assist in anyway possible. Feel free to contact me anytime at reybango {at] gmail dot com should you have any questions or need assistance. We're here to help.

    Rey Bango...
    jQuery Project Team

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