JS Bin
JS Bin is a tiny little webapp that lets people share bits of code for mutual debugging. The sweet spot is for swapping code on support forums. I found a bug in Prototype, for example, and JS Bin let me include a link to running code, quickly:
I’ve put up a test page that shows how this bug will throw errors when using Position.clone():
Use http://jsbin.com/ulebe/edit to modify the code, yourself. The two divs are superimposed in FF, but IE throws the error “’style’ is null or not an object.”
The edit button link anyone play with the code themselves, right away. Major libraries can be included automatically, as I did in that example. The major downside is that code is kept around for only three months, if it’s not visited. It makes me a little nervous about placing it on support threads, where someone might come across a link a year or more after I’ve posted it. In any case, the HTML output that’s generated can be copied to your own server, so the tool is still useful if you need create something more permanent.
Related Posts:
- “Learning Advanced Javascript” (September, 2008)
- Web 2.0 Notes: Brian Dillard on Hacking the Browser (April, 2008)
- Prototype 1.6.0 Release Candidate (August, 2007)
- FIle Upload Madness (June, 2007)
- Web 2.0 Notes: Social Interface Design Patterns (April, 2009)
October 11th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Hi,
I just thought I’d add, that if you place a link to the jsbin paste on a support thread, it’ll be likely that Google or some other search engine will spider the link.
Google will regularly spider the link checking for changes (certainly more than once every 3 months) and as soon as the spider hits JS Bin it’ll mark the paste as newly viewed – hence keeping it active for longer.
Equally, if this is a concern for a lot of people, I may go ahead and add the option to keep the paste forever.
Cheers,
Remy.