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 recently--a tool for teaching developers how to use
Google's JavaScript APIs: the AJAX API Playground. 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!
The AJAX API Playground is currently loaded with
over 170 samples for 8 Google JavaScript APIs (Maps, Search, Feeds, Calendar, Visualization,
Language, Blogger, Libraries and Earth) that you can edit and run to help you explore what
Google's APIs have to offer. There are also save and export features. The save feature allows
you to hold onto an edited sample so you can continue working on it later, while export lets
you modify a sample and publish the code to a permanent url.
As the
AJAX API Playground is built on App Engine, you can create your own App Engine instance to
show off your code samples. The code is open sourced under an Apache 2.0 license and uses
several open source libraries and tools, including jQuery, jQuery
UI, YUI
Compressor, and CodeMirror. You can find the code
on Google
Project Hosting and learn about adding samples on the project
wiki.
