This is all really cool stuff, but I can't help but thinking they've got a dozen or so separate packages here. They've also re-invented the wheel at every turn. All new wrapper for the Twitter API and every search engine? All new graphing library for JavaScript.
Don't get me wrong, this is all awesome, but a lot of it could have been re-used from better sources without having to spend time working on random API wrappers and the like. I would definitely like to know the reasoning behind creating everything from scratch.
The reason is mainly 1) licensing and 2) integration. I took what I found that fitted the BSD license and wrote the rest myself. The idea was having all the things I needed in a single, concise package. I like carrying around 1 MacGyver knife instead of a heavy toolbox - even if all the separate tools in the box are more robust than the knife.
As for the JavaScript graph library: Daniel Friesen had already ported 90% of the Python code, so it only took me a day or two to finish it. The result is a single file (graph.js) with lots of things besides visualization (eigenvector centrality etc.) which seemed better suited to Pattern than integrating another, bigger project.
Don't get me wrong, this is all awesome, but a lot of it could have been re-used from better sources without having to spend time working on random API wrappers and the like. I would definitely like to know the reasoning behind creating everything from scratch.