Type of site Web Startup Owner Google | Available in English | |
Headquarters San Francisco, California Created by Aaron Iba, J.D. Zamfirescu and David Greenspan | ||
AppJet was a website that let users create web-based applications in a client web browser, with no other client software. AppJet was founded by 3 MIT graduates, 2 of whom were engineers at Google before starting AppJet. They launched their initial public beta on December 12, 2007, allowing anyone to create a web app.
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AppJet received funding from Y Combinator in summer, 2007.
The project closed on 1 July 2009 to focus attention on the EtherPad product.
Appjet was acquired by Google on December 4, 2009, for an undisclosed amount.
JGate is a cloud-based service (in Beta and free as of Jan 2011) that allows AppJet applications to be run.
Programming tutorial
On August 14, 2008, AppJet released a programming tutorial aimed at "absolute beginners". The tutorial used the AppJet IDE to provide a programming sandbox for examples, allowing readers to experiment with sample code. This was one of the first online tutorials to embed an IDE exposing a complete server-side web app framework inline with text.
Web software framework
"AppJet" also refers to the server-side JavaScript framework that powers AppJet applications. This is an example of a recent trend in web development, to run JavaScript on both the client and the server, allowing developers to code entire web apps in one language, instead of using a separate language for server-side and client-side scripting.
The virtual machine that powers AppJet apps is based on the Java Virtual Machine, using the Rhino Javascript implementation. Scala libraries are also used.
Features
Updates
Appjet is often updated with bug-fixes, improvements, and other features. A major update to the site was a graphical change implemented on July 10, 2008. This update also added the feature to "Comment" on users apps. Comments are messages about apps left at the URL comments.appname.appjet.net.
Another update occurred on May 2, 2008. This update lets apps be hosted at custom domains