HackerReposA FIELD GUIDE TO OPEN SOURCE
ProSponsor the shelf♧ 0
← Back to top all-time
google
closure-library
JavaScript2016–2025
google / closure-library · Archived

closure-library

Google's common JavaScript library

Web DevelopmentLibraries & SDKs
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
19Distinct people
23Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
4.9KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Google's common JavaScript library

GitHub

Where it is used

  • Chromium — It is used in Chromium to allow protocol buffers to be serialized/deserialized in JavaScript. Source

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year23 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2016-02-22 13:12:47 UTC to 2025-09-28 23:46:47 UTC.

02462016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments20162017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 2 submissions, 1 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 1 submissions, 5 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2025

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC321
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC615
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303

What Hacker News says

23 sources
btown·May 16, 2025
I wrote about one under-appreciated and still-relevant use case for Google Closure Library a while back here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41397235 - reposting it here! > If you want a rich text editor that truly is Gmail's compose editor as it has existed for the past decade - that emits the same structures that Gmail would, handles copy-pasted rich text the same way Gmail does, has the same behavior in typing inside links etc... which is especially useful if you're building an email client that Gmail users need to feel familiar on every keystroke... then following https://github.com/google/closure-library/blob/master/closur... line-for-line is still the gold standard, because it grew from the same codebase as Gmail. > I've had great success at a previous startup referencing a prebuilt Closure Library from a modern ES6+ codebase
Read the rest
and creating a React-friendly wrapper around the editor component, and using this to power an email templating experience. Ironically, I'm within weeks of needing to do it again, thanks to Zawinski's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_Law - "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can." I'll give you one guess what I'll be reaching for, archived or not. > Others have more context on the history and have written more detailed obituaries - but it's a true testament to the engineers that worked on it, that a library can be so ahead of its time that it's still an industry-leading experience [15] years after its initial release. I'm happy to see that it's being maintained! (And that project where I was planning to use it again got delayed, but it might be on deck soon!)
In ClojureScript 1.12.42
btown·Aug 30, 2024
It's a shame this is being abandoned, because if you want a rich text editor that truly is Gmail's compose editor as it has existed for the past decade - that emits the same structures that Gmail would, handles copy-pasted rich text the same way Gmail does, has the same behavior in typing inside links etc... which is especially useful if you're building an email client that Gmail users need to feel familiar on every keystroke... then following https://github.com/google/closure-library/blob/master/closur... line-for-line is still the gold standard, because it grew from the same codebase as Gmail. I've had great success at a previous startup referencing a prebuilt Closure Library from a modern ES6+ codebase and creating a React-friendly wrapper around the editor component, and using this to power an email templating experience. Ironically,
Read the rest
I'm within weeks of needing to do it again, thanks to Zawinski's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_Law - "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can." I'll give you one guess what I'll be reaching for, archived or not. Others have more context on the history and have written more detailed obituaries - but it's a true testament to the engineers that worked on it, that a library can be so ahead of its time that it's still an industry-leading experience 14 years after its initial release.
In Google Closure Library has been archived
paulddraper·Dec 7, 2023
> "I recently learned that some Node.js engineers prefer stream classes when building strings, for performance reasons." Pretty much tells you everything you need to know about node js, I guess. Google Closure Library includes a StringBuffer class. [1] I recall it having explanatory notes, but I don't see them in the code now. JavaScript engines can optimize a string concatenating to in-place edit, if there is only one reference to the first string. The StringBuffer class keeps the reference count at one, guaranteeing this optimization is available, even if the StringBuffer itself is ever shared. [1] https://github.com/google/closure-library/blob/master/closur...
In For processing strings, streams in C++ can be slow
joatmon-snoo·Dec 14, 2022
This made me wonder what the oldest go-link (from inside Google) discoverable on the public internet is. The earliest I've found is from Nov 2009: https://github.com/google/closure-library/blame/11ed104958a2.... (The second closest I've found in another repo is in RE2 from Mar 2010, https://github.com/google/re2/blame/954656f47fe8fb505d4818da... - and yes, both of these existed prior to the listed date, but I'm going off associated timestamps.) (Fun fact: go-links are so critical to Google ops, that they're expected to be accessible in a "everything is down" scenario.)
In Golink: A private shortlink service for tailnets

Showing the 15 most recent of 23 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.

MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

A few shortcuts

/
Search the collection
?
Open this guide
Esc
Close dialogs and navigation

Your saved repositories and interests stay in this browser.