Small Libraries and GitHub: Applet-Fu
If you've ever needed to deploy Java applets, you may have found the information on best practices scattered, inconsistent, and unreliable. Applet-Fu is a small JavaScript library that makes it easy to deploy applets by taking advantage of Web standards and features already supported by mainstream browsers.
More detailed discussion of Applet-Fu is available from the Metamolecular Products Blog and the ChemWriter Best Practices Deployment Page.
Applet-Fu is a perfect example of the kind of open source project for which a service like SourceForge is overkill. The library consists of nothing more than a few lines of JavaScript in a single file, and some documentation. For this reason, Applet-Fu is hosted on GitHub.
The project itself took about 60 seconds to create and upload. Perks include:
- issue tracking easily integrated into source code management workflow
- easy forking and re-merging so that independent development efforts can be co-ordinated with minimal overhead
- highlighted source code right in your browser
- graphical overview of development activity
- stay up to date without subscribing to yet another mailing list
There are many other ways to host open source projects, and GitHub won't be right in every situation. But for small, highly-focused projects, GitHub is well worth checking out.