[svlug] ACCU tonight 'Closure Compiler' Alan Leung and Robert Bowdidge

[Walter Vannini]

When:      Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Topic:     Closure Compiler: Speeding Web Applications by Compiling JavaScript
Speaker:   Alan Leung and Robert Bowdidge
Time:      6:30pm doors open
         7:00pm meeting begins
Where:     Symantec
         VCAFE building
         350 Ellis Street (near E. Middlefield Road)
         Mountain View, CA 94043
Map:       <http://tinyurl.com/334rv5>
Directions: VCAFE is accessible from the semicircular courtyard between Symantec buildings <http://tinyurl.com/2dccgc>
Cost:      Free
More Info: <http://www.accu-usa.org>

Web applications live and die by their startup speed, so it's critical to minimize the size of the resources being downloaded.  Closure Compiler is an open-source tool for minimizing the size of JavaScript code to speed up JavaScript-based web apps, and is used within Google on most JavaScript code we serve.  Closure Compiler is actually a true compiler, rewriting JavaScript into a more condensed (but still valid) form, reducing startup time and reducing network traffic.  Closure Compiler also helps detect syntax, variable reference, and type errors and warns about common JavaScript pitfalls without requiring the developer to download and test the code.

We'll talk about the motivation for Closure Compiler, compare it with other minification tools, and go into detail on some of the optimizations that Closure Compiler uses to shrink code.  We'll also talk a bit about the oddities of the JavaScript language.

Closure Compiler can be tried out on-line at closure-compiler.appspot.com.

Alan Leung is a software engineer at Google working on JavaScript infrastructure tools. He's responsible for several of the cooler optimizations in Closure Compiler.

Robert Bowdidge works on JavaScript infrastructure tools at Google, and helped with the open-sourcing of Closure Compiler.  In a past life, he implemented the Objective C refactoring support in Apple's Xcode IDE.

Meetings are open to the public and are free of charge.

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The ACCU meets monthly. Meetings are always open to the public and are free of charge. To suggest topics and speakers please email Walter Vannini via walterv at gbbservices.com