/dev/nikc/blog

If you need to quickly prototype a piece of code, possibly also share it with someone, you have plenty of tools to choose from. Here’s a few I’ve run into.

• Codepad
  • The only one that’s not targeted at browser code
  • Has the broadest set of runnable languages of the lot, but no way of providing input
  • Great for 99 Bottles prototyping, if you don’t want to install the compiler/interpreter locally
• JSFiddle
  • The swiss army knife of browser code prototyping and sharing.
  • Emphasis on scripting, like the name suggests
  • Allows bootstrapping to several JS frameworks
  • External resources supported
• JSBin
  • Provides a vast selection of libraries to include
  • Allows editing the whole html document
• Tinker.io
  • Open Source JSBin-like tool
  • No external resources provided
• Dabblet
  • Has nowadays expanded to JS territory, too, but emphasize is on HTML and CSS prototyping.
  • Stores your code as a Github Gist
• Github Gist
  • Snippets of code (or text) for public or private storage.
  • Highlights several languages, but doesn’t run anything
  • Can optionally contain multiple files in a single Gist
• Tinkerbin
  • Supports compile-to-languages, i.e. HAML, Sass and CoffeeScript
• Tmpltr
  • Rapid prototyping of data bound templates
  • Include external resources by drag-and-drop upload
• Plnkr.co
  • Collaborative tool for creating “Plunks”, which can be forked by others, and optionally also private
• CodePen
  • Looks quite similar to many others, but offers a Pro-version with an improved feature set
  • Seems to focus more on brandishing a complete creation, rather than just sharing a snippet of code