Google has announced the release of some of its core application development tools as open source. The Closure tools, which include the Closure Compiler, Closure Library, Closure Templates, and Closure Inspector, have been used by Google to develop its popular Gmail, Google Docs and Google Maps web applications.

The Closure Compiler is a tool for making JavaScript download and run faster. It compiles from JavaScript to better JavaScript. It parses your JavaScript, analyzes it, removes dead code and rewrites and minimizes what’s left. There is an online version which you can try right now.

The Closure Library is a broad, well-tested, modular, and cross-browser JavaScript library. Web developers can pull just what they need from a wide set of reusable UI widgets and controls, as well as lower-level utilities for the DOM, server communication, animation, data structures, unit testing, rich-text editing, and much, much more.

The Closure Templates automate the dynamic generation of HTML code. It is a client- and server-side templating system that helps you dynamically build reusable HTML and UI elements.

All the Closure tools are available under the Apache Licence 2.0.

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Google releases JavaScript tools as open source