Creating a Slimmer JavaScript SDK Together

Many of you currently use the Facebook JavaScript client library to integrate social features into your website or application. This library helps you access a user's identity (like name, profile photo), connections (friends, pages), and social activity (live feed, communication channels) to add value to your service. Today, we are launching a new alpha version of the JavaScript library that is at least 3 times faster, 10 times more lightweight, and easier to use. It's a work in progress and we would like to hear your feedback and collaborate on its development.

In addition, we're open sourcing the new Facebook Connect JavaScript SDK on GitHub, along with a readme, documentation, and a FAQ to give you the ability to collaborate and build with us.

Looking Ahead

As we announced last week, we're giving you more visibility into our roadmap. Over the next few months, we plan to revamp and release the new JavaScript SDK in phases with the following functionality:

1. Core: Authentication, authorization, Facebook Platform/Connect API calls, and publishing to the Feed.
2. XFBML/Widgets: Dynamic loading and events, new social widgets.
3. Data: Data access abstractions.

Today's alpha release includes the Core module. This is an early release, and we will continue to develop features for the SDK over the next few months.

Why Open Source?

At Facebook, we believe in releasing and contributing to open source projects as a way to increase innovation across the Web. That's why you'll find us developing the new JavaScript SDK from the alpha stage release publicly. We are working hard to ensure your experience with Facebook Connect is fast and stable. In order to keep us nimble and allow us to bring you new functionality, without compromising stability, we have ensured full test coverage of the new JavaScript SDK. We are including this in the open source repository to assure you of our commitment to quality, but also with the hopes that you will contribute back as we develop in the future.

Naitik, a software engineer on the Platform team, is making your connections better, stronger, and faster.