The high speed with which the web evolves leads to the appearance of a large amount of information regarding the principles of new-born development technologies or the improvements of older ones. Indexing that information becomes complex due to the fact that the information flux requires various processing operations, which implies the need of many types of efficient resources and management strategies.

The most convenient indexing method for any type of information is represented by the inclusion of documentation in an encyclopedia. For web programmers, there are many free Internet resources with an encyclopedic character.

Google Doctype is an online open source encyclopedia for web programmers. Google explains the reason of this new web resource creation as follows: "because none of the existing resources fit our needs exactly. For example, many sites offer articles on web development, but few allow continuous improvement once the articles have been written. They are 'set in stone,' stamped with today's date, discussed briefly, and then forgotten. As the open web evolves, we would like to keep articles section of Google Doctype as up-to-date as possible, for as long as possible. This requires collaborative editing."

Google Doctype encyclopedy contains the next sections types: How To Articles, DOM (Document Object Model) Reference, HTML Reference and CSS Reference. In How To Articles section, you will find information regarding web security, DOM manipulation, CSS, tips and tricks and best practices in HTML.

By using test cases and automated regression testing (JSUnit framework is used for individual or group tests), up to date browser compatibility charts can be found in the Google Doctype encyclopedia.

Another interesting aspect of this encyclopedia is that you have the possibility to download and publish and even redistribute it. In case you want to edit certain parts of the encyclopedia content, a valid Google account is enough to add or update articles. The Google Doctype encyclopedia is available for download here.

Portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution License.