Google's Open-Source Closure Tools Project

Google's open-source Closure Tools project, commenced Thursday, is an attempt to help developers in creating Web sites and Web applications. Google being a strong proponent of JavaScript based programming, intends to help with writing, debugging, and optimizing heavy-duty JavaScript by the program.

The Closure Compiler, is first in the suite of software packages, it tends to boil down a JavaScript program to smaller codes to run faster. The compiler removes dead code, then rewrites and minimizes what's left so that it will run fast on browsers' JavaScript engines. Also, Closure Inspector, is an extension for Firefox's Firebug add-on designed to help programmers understand and debug the rewritten JavaScript program. Another add-on for the Google Page Speed extension lets programmers see how much the compiler helped.

The Closure Library, second in the list, is a collection of prebuilt JavaScript code that lets programmers handle relatively complicated technology. And last on the list, Closure Templates, extensive pre-written codes to ease creation of JavaScript and HTML user interfaces. They are components that can be composed to form user interface, instead of having to create one big template per page.

Google plans to make the compiler available as a Web application hosted on its Google App Engine service.