OAuth Playground: Open-sourced
May 20th, 2009 | Published in Google Code
The OAuth Playground has proven to be an invaluable tool for developers. For one, it's handy for experimenting with the Google Data APIs, but more importantly, it gives developers the ability to debug their own OAuth implementations. Anyone who tinkered with the open protocol knows it has nuances! Many first-timers fall into the same pitfalls, so to help remedy that, I've decided to open-source the Playground in hopes that other OAuth service providers will create similar tools for their own APIs.
A lot has happened in the OAuth space since the Playground's release last fall. Included in that is Google's growing number of OAuth-related features and resources to aid developers. Here are just a few:
- 2 legged OAuth for Google Apps administrators
- Hybrid (OpenID + OAuth) protocol
- Client library OAuth samples in Python, App Engine Python, Java, App Engine Java, PHP
- Article: Using OAuth with the Google Data APIs
- Article: Using OAuth in the Google Data API Client Libraries
The feedback we have heard is that OAuth is difficult to implement and that it's tough to grasp the interactions between user, consumer and service provider. By open-sourcing the OAuth Playground, we really want to make it easier for developers to understand the OAuth flow and debug their own OAuth applications.
For even more information on OAuth and the OAuth proxy, check out our talk at Google I/O entitled Using Google Data APIs and OAuth to Create an OpenSocial Gadget.
If you have any questions, ask in the forums!