Mozilla Labs has begun a new Open Source project, this one very different from most of the others in which it is involved. This new venture is called Bespin and it is a Web-based code editor.

The project will take up residence in Mozilla’s Developer Tools Lab, and is intended to boost developer productivity, enable compelling user experiences and promote open standards. The new project is comprised of an extensible framework for what is being called Open Web development, a process in which the applications produced are compatible with open-standards browsers. These applications would not require plug-ins provided by a single vendor.

Mozilla Labs developers Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer say, “The idea for Bespin is to sort of use later, newer Web technologies to try create a much better experience for code editing on the Web than we’ve seen before. A lot of efforts to create Web-based code editors have resulted in editors with poor performance or poor user experiences.” Bespin, on the other hand, is intended to “to create an experience on the Web that is as rich as a desktop editor.”

The developers of Bespin envision a cloud-based scenario for the Bespin editor, according to an InfoWorld story. In this scenario, it would be easy to surf to a Web site, enter the name of an open source project, and then quickly be inside that project. Developers would be able to make and submit changes via the Web site while on line. Galbraith says, “To do this, we’ve used new HTML 5 technologies, specifically the Canvas tag.”

Galbraith continued,  “We don’t enable the above scenario today, but it’s an example of what is possible once we have a foundation of a great, high-quality Web-based code editor. So that is one of the things we’re hoping to facilitate with the Bespin project.” Although it is currently only a preview, Bespin could turn into something much more, Galbraith said. “Right now, we’re just experimenting. Mozilla is looking for developer feedback on Bespin.”

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Entry was posted on Saturday, February 14th, 2009 at 4:48 pm under Internet, Open source, Technology.

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