GitHub Rebase #36

As always, if you have neat projects you want to show off send me a message! I usually try to keep a balance of languages/domains between the posts, so don’t lose hope if your project isn’t in the latest issue. Just please have a README so you can show others (and me!) how to setup/use your project.

Featured Project

coffee-script is what HAML and SASS are to HTML and CSS, just for JavaScript. This is a fantastic DSL that compiles down to executable JS and adds plenty of awesome features along the way. CoffeeScript offers a terse syntax inspired by Ruby and Python, list comprehensions, existential operators to remove pesky @typeof@ checks, and a reliable inheritance model to boot. The list goes on and on, and for executable examples along with their compiled-to-JavaScript equivalents, check out the docs. Some projects are already cropping up, including rack-coffee and even a rewrite of underscore.js. GitHub’s languages section already recognizes CoffeeScript, so get hacking!

Notably New Projects

[nv](http://github.com/scrod/nv), or Notational Velocity, is an OSX desktop app that does just that: note taking. It approaches this simple task in a mouseless, modeless way, and user interaction is driven through incremental search. If it can’t find a note with you’re starting to type, and a new one is instantly created and saved. The data’s also not trapped on your own machine, you can hook it up to Simplenote, or to anywhere via WriteRoom or Dropbox. Download it here.

jquery.fortune is a replacement for Unix’s fortune in jQuery. Set up your fortune cookies with JSON, hook it to an HTML element, and you’re all set. There’s a live demo if you want to see it in action. On the more practical side, this could be a great example of how easy it is to make a jQuery plugin. I’m just waiting for the first person to combine this with the jQuery Konami Code.

hubroid is an Android app for keeping track of what’s happening on GitHub while you’re not hooked to your computer. So far, the app can look up the repos you’re watching and your own, forked repos, and the latest commits from a given repo. Being an Droid owner myself, I’m tempted to break out some Java to help contribute. It would be great to view commit diffs or your timeline in the app, or even post gists.

Written by

Nick Quaranto

@qrush