The Code Review: OpenSocial maturing, Rhino on Rails, and more

FEB 14, 2008

By Dion Almaer, Google Developer Programs

February already? Spring is here, and you can tell in Mountain View as the rain has stopped. Spring brings out your social side, and we have seen a lot of growth with OpenSocial and other social APIs.

There was plenty of talk across the Web about the new Social Graph API that Brad Fitzpatrick announced. The API uses the Google crawler to gather up the XFN, FOAF, and other public social data that is spread out already on the Web. You can ask for a social graph that puts this together and gives you back a nice set of JSON.

OpenSocial is moving forward also. OpenSocial 0.7 is now available in the Orkut sandbox, MySpace announced their new platform, and a great group of people got together at Six Apart for a Hackathon.

On another note, I had the pleasure to sit down with Steve Yegge at the Google Kirkland office to discuss his Rhino on Rails project. He gave frank feedback on the history, present, and future of the project and I look forward to hearing, and sharing, more.

There was more Web development news too. Two companies came out talking about GWT. First, YesMail talked about the work behind their 17 GWT modules and 33,000 lines of GWT code. They discuss the design, scalability, and testing practices that they employ.

Compiere, creator of an opensource ERP, talked to us about their recent GWT port from a Swing application.

Developers from Autodesk Labs also came to talk to us about their work implementing offline support to their Project Draw project using Gears.

Fun times at Google

Christian Schalk has spearheaded the new Google Technology User Groups, and there are events going on hopefully near you.

One such Mountain View event is a hackathon for JavaScript developers. Come to the Googleplex and enjoy code, beer, and prizes!

Open Source

We have created a new blog dedicated to Open Source, and there are already good posts covering: the growth of Project Hosting, sponsorships of the Freedom Training Task Force and Wine improvements, and the grand prize winners for the Google Highly Open Participation Contest.

And, to finish up, check out the new iGoogle Themes API.

As always, check out the latest tech talks, subscribe to the Google Developer Podcast and visit the Google Code YouTube channel.