Open Source Resources for Web Application Developers

XRegExp is an open source (MIT license) JavaScript library that provides an augmented, extensible, cross-browser implementation of regular expressions, including support for additional syntax, flags, and methods.

XRegExp adds new regex and replacement text syntax, including comprehensive support for named capture. It also provides a suite of 12 functions and methods that make complex regex processing a breeze. And it lets you easily create and use plugins that add new syntax and flags to XRegExp’s regular expression language.

XRegExp is fully compliant with the regular expression flavor specified in ECMA-262 Edition 3 (ES3), and has been tested with Internet Explorer 5.5–8, Firefox 2–3, Safari 3–4, Chrome 1–2, and Opera 9. XRegExp uses feature detection—no browser sniffing.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://xregexp.com/
License: MIT License

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Less is Leaner css. Less extends css by adding: variables, mixins, operations and nested rules. Less uses existing css syntax. This means you can migrate your current .css files to .less in seconds and there is virtually no learning curve.

Variables
Variables allow you to specify widely used values in a single place, and then re-use them throughout the style sheet, making global changes as easy as changing one line of code.

Mixins
Mixins allow you to embed all the properties of a class into another class by simply including the class name as one of its properties. It’s just like variables, but for whole classes.

Nested Rules
Rather than constructing long selector names to specify inheritance, in Less you can simply nest selectors inside other selectors. This makes inheritance clear and style sheets shorter.

Operations
Are some elements in your style sheet proportional to other elements? Operations let you add, subtract, divide and multiply property values and colors, giving you the power to do create complex relationships between properties.

Requirements: Ruby on Rails
Demo: http://lesscss.org/
License: Apache License

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Developer Kevin van Zonneveld was once working on a project with a lot of client(JS) / server(PHP) interaction, and he found himself coding PHP functions (like base64_decode & urldecode) in JavaScript to smoothen communication between the two languages.

He stored the stored the functions in a file called PHP.JS which was included in the project. But even when the project was done, it remained fun trying to port PHP functions to JavaScript, and so the library grew.

Kevin decided to share the little library on his blog, triggering the enthusiasm of a lot of PHP developers longing for PHP functionality in JavaScript. PHP.JS is an open source project in which they try to port PHP functions to JavaScript. By including the PHP.JS library in your own projects, you can use your favorite PHP functions client-side.

Requirements: Javascript Enabled
Demo: http://phpjs.org/
License: MIT and GPL Licenses

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Lighter.js is a free syntax highlighting class developed with MooTools. It was created with the MooTools developer in mind and takes advantage of many of the Framework’s features. Using it can be as simple as adding a single script to your webpage, selecting the elements you wish to highlight, and Lighter.js takes care of the rest. Lighter.js has been tested on Safari 2+, Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox 2+ and Opera 9+.

Requirements: MooTools Framework
Demo: http://pradador.com/code/lighterjs/
License: MIT License

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Code reviews play an integral part in the development process for making quality software. We can find out security holes, memory leaks, poor queries and heavy file structures from code reviews. Unfortunately, these reviews are also very time consuming.

We spend a lot of time echoing queries, memory stats and objects to the browser just to see how they are being used in the code. To reduce this repetition, Ryan Campbell has invested some time creating the PHP Quick Profiler (PQP). It’s a small tool (think Firebug for PHP) to provide profiling and debugging related information to developers without needing them to add a lot of programmatic overhead to their code.

Now, we only need to toggle one config setting to true and we can have access to an automated tool to help create a faster and more consistent review experience. Since anyone can use it, PQP also gives the initial developer an idea of where their code stands before the review.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://particletree.com/examples/pqp/
License: License Free

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Sorting Algorithm Animations show 8 different sorting algorithms (Insertion, Selection, Bubble, Shell, Merge, Heap, Quick and Quick3) on 4 different initial conditions (Random, Nearly Sorted, Reversed and Few Unique).

These visualizations are intended to show how each algorithm operates and the advantages and disadvantages of each of them. It has concluded that there is no best sorting algorithm.The worse-case asymptotic behavior is not the deciding factor in choosing an algorithm. And also, the initial condition affects performance as much as the algorithm choice.

Source: http://www.sorting-algorithms.com/

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Sprockets is a Ruby library that preprocesses and concatenates JavaScript source files. It takes any number of source files and preprocesses them line-by-line in order to build a single concatenation.

Specially formatted lines act as directives to the Sprockets preprocessor, telling it to require the contents of another file or library first or to provide a set of asset files (such as images or stylesheets) to the document root. Sprockets attempts to fulfill required dependencies by searching a set of directories called the load path.

If you use and contribute to open-source JavaScript frameworks and libraries that use Sprockets, like Prototype and script.aculo.us, the build processes for those scripts can be integrated directly into your application. That makes it possible to track the latest development versions of your framework and library dependencies by adding their repositories to your Sprockets load path.

Requirements: Ruby on Rails Framework
Demo: http://getsprockets.org/
License: MIT Licenses

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Sometimes, documentation isn’t always enough to learn about APIs. We need examples that I can play with. That’s why Ben Lisbakken released AJAX API Playground for teaching developers how to use Google’s JavaScript APIs.

The AJAX APIs 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.

Source: AJAX API Playground

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Minify is a PHP5 app that can combine multiple CSS or Javascript files, compress their contents (i.e. removal of unnecessary whitespace/comments), and serve the results with HTTP encoding (gzip/deflate) and headers that allow optimal client-side caching.

Yahoo’s Combo Handler and Google’s AJAX Libraries API both serve content from their heavy-duty CDNs and potentially increase the chance that your visitor will already have a file in her browser cache. Neither service serves custom content that you provide. You may wish to use these services to serve popular libraries and Minify to serve your code.

Minify is distributed under the New BSD License, which means that you’re free to use, modify, and redistribute Minify or derivative works thereof, even for commercial purposes, as long as you comply with a few simple requirements. See the License file for details.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://code.google.com/p/minify/
License: New BSD License

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Blackbird offers a dead-simple way to log messages in JavaScript and an attractive console to view and filter them. You might never use alert() again. You can add Blackbird to your page easily, simply download the files and place them on your server or in a local directory on your computer. And then Include blackbird.js and blackbird.css in your page. Blackbird is has been smoke-tested on Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox 2+, Safari 2+, Opera 9.5.

Requirements: Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox 2+, Safari 2+, Opera 9.5
Demo: http://www.gscottolson.com/blackbirdjs/
License: MIT License

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