8 ms·

Toward a URL for every function

133 points by joeyespo 10y ago

majewsky 10y ago
When I read the title, I was imagining something more theoretical, e.g. a URL encoding of lambda calculus terms.
- gavinpc 10y ago
  Same here. As others have indicated, that would be more consistent with the title (and more interesting). The more general idea is a content-addressable function repository, where, as you point out, code would have to be in some kind of normal form. Joe Armstrong toys with this idea in his talk "The mess we're in," one of my favorites. [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4&t=33m10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4&t=33m10s
  - genericpseudo 10y ago
    My semantic-web-loving cold dead heart disagrees with you on the "more interesting". The one really good idea in the whole Semantic Web train-wreck (and at this distance, I think it's fair to call it that) was that everything should have a negotiable, dereferencable URL. REST includes that core principle. A lot of single-page web apps make me sad because they've been designed without reference to that. If what you're building is genuinely an application, then I get it; but most of the time what you're building is a catalogue, and everything in that can have an address, so it should.
    - gavinpc 10y ago
      I agree 100% about catalogues and addressability. I'm also a diehard in that respect, and I've come to distinguish "apps" in a similar manner, as sites where either there's no "business case" for an ontology, or the content is too transient for it to matter. Naming is hard... I think that's what makes the "semantic web" a kind of chimera even for those who endorse it. Can a URL really capture the worldwide identity of a thing? Over all time? And who's going to maintain all those names? Suppose that naming everything is intractable as a human effort, but we still want addressability. Alan Kay takes this to the extreme, saying, why not give every object on the internet an IP address? [0] Not every resource, every object, in every program. It sounds facetious, but it's consistent with his general objects-as-computers-all-the-way-down view. His system designs (including those from VPRI) express the belief that hard barriers between the layers of a system (usage and application, application and framework, framework and OS) account for much of today's uncontrollable code bloat and the limits on how much scale systems can tolerate. The "everything gets an IP address" idea is just a recognition that network boundaries will eventually be seen the same way. From this perspective, it might be fruitful to think about how we'd identify things on the internet if they were homogenous with the objects in our applications. [0] It's in one of his talks but I don't remember which.
  - jplur 10y ago
    Strongly agree! One of the reasons I'm excited about IPFS is for content addressable code linking. For example, running single js functions through google's closure compiler to normalize the symbols and using a package manager that would recursively replace IPFS links with the code.
- th0ma5 10y ago
  Sort of reminds me of the Redfoot project for Python. It was sort of a URI based code repository...
- igravious 10y ago
  Same here! And then I went, "Uh oh, … CORBA strikes back!"
  - bluejekyll 10y ago
    Am I the only one in the world that liked CORBA? I used ACE and TAO back in the day, and built multicast discovery mechanism to decentralize the ORB. Then the SOAP shitshow came to town, and now REST which is the rockstar, but people want better defined endpoints (RAML), um IDL was there in CORBA. REST is definitely easier to use than CORBA was, but it's much more limited, and it always feels like we're just reinventing the wheel. And yes, REST is better for web APIs, but it's always felt lacking after using CORBA.
- 1ris 10y ago
  Check out Binary Lambda Calculus.
- lelf 10y ago
  Same. Was expecting something like http://www.haskellforall.com/2015/05/the-internet-of-code.html http://www.haskellforall.com/2015/05/the-internet-of-code.ht... https://github.com/Gabriel439/Haskell-Annah-Library https://github.com/Gabriel439/Haskell-Annah-Library
- mreid 10y ago
  It's been a while since I looked at it, but I think Computational REST (CREST) tried to do something like that: http://www.erenkrantz.com/CREST/ http://www.erenkrantz.com/CREST/
Shendare 10y ago
A URL for every function on GitHub, at least. Cool idea.
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  It appears to be namespaced, so presumably sourcegraph could add more repos at their own leisure.
  - sqs 10y ago
    Sourcegrapher here. Indeed. Sourcegraph has repositories hosted elsewhere, such as https://sourcegraph.com/bitbucket.org/gotamer/bbpost/-/def/GoPackage/bitbucket.org/gotamer/bbpost/-/main.go/Options https://sourcegraph.com/bitbucket.org/gotamer/bbpost/-/def/G.... These are picked up by automated backend processes; if you have a Git repository that you'd like to specifically add, just email us (support@sourcegraph.com) or Tweet at us (https://twitter.com/srcgraph https://twitter.com/srcgraph) for now.
    - pc86 10y ago
      Any plans to support Hg or TFS?
      - sqs 10y ago
        Yep, we will, but we don't have a timeline for those right now. Any VCS that can implement this Repository interface (https://sourcegraph.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/-/def/GoPackage/sourcegraph.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/pkg/vcs/-/Repository https://sourcegraph.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/-/def/GoPack...) is fine. We have some code written to support Hg, but nothing ready to release yet.
sandebert 10y ago
...for an extremely narrow definition of "world". (Github)
- sqs 10y ago
  Sourcegrapher here. Git repositories hosted anywhere with Go or Java code will work. Admittedly, that's still narrow, but we are just beginning. :) Also, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11856255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11856255.
malchow 10y ago
Here's an example: https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/def/GoPackage/encoding/json/-/MarshalIndent https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/def/GoPackage...
- sqs 10y ago
  Sourcegrapher here. And if you want to see everywhere in the world that function is used, check out the usages list on the right side, which takes you here: https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/info/GoPackage/encoding/json/-/MarshalIndent https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/info/GoPackag....
skybrian 10y ago
For Go in particular, a possible alternative is godoc.org: https://godoc.org/flag#Arg https://godoc.org/flag#Arg
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  And Java has Javadoc, and so on. This seems interesting in that it's not just about the semantic docs, but actually provides an IDE-like source view in the browser. The closest I've seen before would probably be SXR/Scala X-Ray[1], but this seems much more polished. [1]: http://www.scala-sbt.org/0.13/sxr/CrossVersionUtil.scala.html http://www.scala-sbt.org/0.13/sxr/CrossVersionUtil.scala.htm...
  - skybrian 10y ago
    For embedding into documentation, there's also a question of longevity. Which URL is less likely to break?
jesalg 10y ago
Curious why they decided not to work on adding Ruby support especially when underlying srclib which they use has support for it.
- sqs 10y ago
  Sourcegrapher here. We'll definitely release Ruby support in the future. Because Ruby has a lot of dynamic language features, it's important we do it well, and it takes some and thought. We track the coverage % of our analyzers for all languages we support, and our Ruby support isn't at our quality threshold yet. We'll release Ruby when we can do it almost as well as Go (e.g., https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/def/GoPackage/net/http/-/NewRequest https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/def/GoPackage...).
  - jesalg 10y ago
    Nice, looking forward to it!
nojvek 10y ago
Would make a lot of node modules as functions redundant
kazinator 10y ago
Or, just embed the entire function in the URL. :)
alberto_balsalm 10y ago
Some of you may find Unison interesting: http://unisonweb.org/2015-05-07/about.html#post-start http://unisonweb.org/2015-05-07/about.html#post-start
sqs 10y ago
Sourcegraph founder here. We built this to make it much easier to grok code. It saves us hours every day. Would love to hear your feedback! The README has some good links to try Sourcegraph at https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/blob/master/READM...: https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/square/okhttp/-/def/JavaArtifact/com.squareup.okhttp3/okhttp/-/okhttp3/Request:type/Builder:type/method:java.lang.String:okhttp3.RequestBody https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/square/okhttp/-/def/JavaA... (semantic code browsing for Java) https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/info/GoPackage/net/http/-/NewRequest https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/info/GoPackag... (http.NewRequest used in 8801 repositories) Sourcegraph supports Go and Java right now. If you want to get access to the upcoming beta of JavaScript, Python, or other languages, send us a note at support@sourcegraph.com or https://twitter.com/srcgraph https://twitter.com/srcgraph.
- michaelmior 10y ago
  > These URLs always refer to the latest definition and won’t break if the file is edited, unlike links to a specific line number. You can always get the URL on GitHub for a particular line number at a particular revision which won't break when the file changes. A persistent link to a function can break in a different way in that maybe the function, while named the same, changes behaviour in a way that it no longer does exactly what it originally did. It's not obvious to me which of these breakages is more relevant. When you talk about "hackable" URLs it would be great to be able to get a URL for a named function at a particular revision. This solves both problems. I have an immutable reference to a particular piece of code, but then by hacking the URL I should be able to still see the most recent version.
  - beliu 10y ago
    Exactly! You mean like this? https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/gorilla/mux@9fa818a44c2bf1396a17f9d5a3c0f6dd39d2ff8e/-/def/GoPackage/github.com/gorilla/mux/-/CurrentRoute https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/gorilla/mux@9fa818a44c2bf...
    - 10y ago
danvoell 10y ago
I'm not sure if I understand this correctly, but my first thought is, what if the function that I am using needs to change? For instance, using css, if I later discover that the design was incorrect, I would rather just change the design code instead of updating each linking instance.
- sqs 10y ago
  Sourcegrapher here. This is for linking to the source code of functions (and other definitions), for when you are discussing or explaining code. It's not for importing code at compile time or runtime. P.S. Sourcegraph supports semantically linking to CSS as well: https://sourcegraph.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/-/def/basic-css/sourcegraph/-/app/node_modules/amplitude-js/documentation/styles/jsdoc-default.css%2523main https://sourcegraph.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/-/def/basic-....
  - danvoell 10y ago
    Got it, thanks for the clarification.
Roritharr 10y ago
Hi, this looks very interesting but maybe more on the side of a feature i wish GitLab, Bitbucket etc would have than other getting a dedicated for.
- sqs 10y ago
  Sourcegraph founder here. If you install the Chrome extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sourcegraph-for-github/dgjhfomjieaadpoljlnidmbgkdffpack https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sourcegraph-for-gi...), you can get it on GitHub. Support for GitLab and Bitbucket is coming soon. And what's more, the Chrome extension actually adds # fragment URLs to github.com that are semantically meaningful, just like on Sourcegraph.
alpyne 10y ago
Sourcegraph folk, are you aware of Rich Hickey's codeq [0][1] for clojure: codeq allows you to track change at the program unit level (e.g. function and method definitions) and query your programs and libraries declaratively, with the same cognitive units and names you use while programming [0] http://blog.datomic.com/2012/10/codeq.html http://blog.datomic.com/2012/10/codeq.html [1] https://github.com/Datomic/codeq#codeq https://github.com/Datomic/codeq#codeq
- sqs 10y ago
  Sourcegraph founder here. Yep, that's an extremely compelling idea. We were definitely aware of this when we started Sourcegraph. Are you using codeq?
- jpitz 10y ago
  It lacks the ability to track changes, but BBQ http://browsebyquery.sourceforge.net/ http://browsebyquery.sourceforge.net/ can query JVM and CLR programs - and holy crap is that useful when you need it. Speaking of tracking changes at the method level, does anyone remember VisualAge for Java?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
waxjar 10y ago
What happens if a function is renamed?
- sqs 10y ago
  We don't handle that case right now, but it's a TODO. Will be an interesting problem to address.
zeveb 10y ago
Neat idea, although I'm not sold on the style of the URLs themselves. It'd be cool to introduce a new URL scheme: code://github.com/edicl/hunchentoot/master/log.lisp?macro=with-log-stream That would handle multiple definition namespaces. One could use code://github.com/edicl/hunchentoot/master/log.lisp?macro=with-log-stream&commit=0951a0df8fe93d99e6f2aa3f9612a2d6e581e84f to refer to a particular commit. No idea what the equivalent would look like for other VCSes though.
- asimuvPR 10y ago
  I've been toying with roughly the same idea for some months. I've come up with new URL schemes for JSON objects[1], and (Iot)hings[2]. They differ in what they do but the purpose is to explore how specific URL schemes could open the door for improvements. [1] json://the-domain.com/example Would return: {"json":"data"} [2] thing://ip-address/example In this case, it returns JSON for the sake of readability, so: {"name":"car","speed":88,"location":"1985"}
  - zeveb 10y ago
    What would be the advantage of those schemes over HTTP? In the case of code, I can see that there's a potential benefit to being able to refer to conceptual objects (e.g. variables, functions, macros) within version control systems, and maybe that's worth breaking with HTTP URLs, although I'm not completely sold there. What would the advantage of json: be over Content-Type: TYPE+json? It's a little easier to see that iot:UUID might indicate something like 'over any number of protocols, over any number of networks, please contact this device in my locality' or somesuch.
    - asimuvPR 10y ago
      I'm exploring if there is a benefit to using new protocols for networked things. Mostly research. :)
ed 10y ago
It'd be cool if you could create a permalink from a github URL (with a line no. param). Then the interface could look like tinyurl (anonymously paste a github link, get a sourcegraph link in return). Bonus points if it simply redirects you to the new line number on GitHub's master.
- sqs 10y ago
  We have something like that—and better in some ways. Check out the Sourcegraph Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sourcegraph-for-github/dgjhfomjieaadpoljlnidmbgkdffpack https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sourcegraph-for-gi.... You get jump-to-def by clicking on code on GitHub. And it uses these semantic URLs in a backward-compatible way, so that they encode the definition/function name but also the line number (so anyone not using the extension can still use the URLs). It's a great idea to make a little app to get a permalink, too!
heynk 10y ago
This should be a great long-tail SEO boost. It's just like one of (Rap) Genius's best early SEO advantages, which was that they had a URL for every line. https://moz.com/blog/how-i-would-do-seo-for-rap-genius https://moz.com/blog/how-i-would-do-seo-for-rap-genius
partycoder 10y ago
You mean like RPC? If so take a look at Thrift, Protocol buffers, Avro, or whatever. If the idea is to just expose reusable functions, you can take a look at https://algorithmia.com/ https://algorithmia.com/
z3t4 10y ago
Most JS programmers seems to use modules (require/import) as masqueraded globals, like importing complexed functions instead of just standalone modules. And in that case it's better to just declare all dependencies in the root (html file). You would probably want to use a package manager though, to keep track of name conflicts and manage the script tags (dependencies of dependencies). As for central hosting of packages I think it will work. But we will probably need to be able to have many src attributes in script-tags for redundancy and optimal caching.
foota 10y ago
Don't we already have this in the form of NPM?
ricardobeat 10y ago
Please don't do this if you want future-proof URLs - that's the whole point of linking to a specific commit. Functions and files will get moved, renamed, refactored and deleted.

133 points by joeyespo 10y ago

majewsky 10y ago

When I read the title, I was imagining something more theoretical, e.g. a URL encoding of lambda calculus terms.

gavinpc 10y ago
Same here. As others have indicated, that would be more consistent with the title (and more interesting). The more general idea is a content-addressable function repository, where, as you point out, code would have to be in some kind of normal form. Joe Armstrong toys with this idea in his talk "The mess we're in," one of my favorites. [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4&t=33m10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4&t=33m10s
- genericpseudo 10y ago
  My semantic-web-loving cold dead heart disagrees with you on the "more interesting". The one really good idea in the whole Semantic Web train-wreck (and at this distance, I think it's fair to call it that) was that everything should have a negotiable, dereferencable URL. REST includes that core principle. A lot of single-page web apps make me sad because they've been designed without reference to that. If what you're building is genuinely an application, then I get it; but most of the time what you're building is a catalogue, and everything in that can have an address, so it should.
  - gavinpc 10y ago
    I agree 100% about catalogues and addressability. I'm also a diehard in that respect, and I've come to distinguish "apps" in a similar manner, as sites where either there's no "business case" for an ontology, or the content is too transient for it to matter. Naming is hard... I think that's what makes the "semantic web" a kind of chimera even for those who endorse it. Can a URL really capture the worldwide identity of a thing? Over all time? And who's going to maintain all those names? Suppose that naming everything is intractable as a human effort, but we still want addressability. Alan Kay takes this to the extreme, saying, why not give every object on the internet an IP address? [0] Not every resource, every object, in every program. It sounds facetious, but it's consistent with his general objects-as-computers-all-the-way-down view. His system designs (including those from VPRI) express the belief that hard barriers between the layers of a system (usage and application, application and framework, framework and OS) account for much of today's uncontrollable code bloat and the limits on how much scale systems can tolerate. The "everything gets an IP address" idea is just a recognition that network boundaries will eventually be seen the same way. From this perspective, it might be fruitful to think about how we'd identify things on the internet if they were homogenous with the objects in our applications. [0] It's in one of his talks but I don't remember which.
- jplur 10y ago
  Strongly agree! One of the reasons I'm excited about IPFS is for content addressable code linking. For example, running single js functions through google's closure compiler to normalize the symbols and using a package manager that would recursively replace IPFS links with the code.
th0ma5 10y ago
Sort of reminds me of the Redfoot project for Python. It was sort of a URI based code repository...
igravious 10y ago
Same here! And then I went, "Uh oh, … CORBA strikes back!"
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  Am I the only one in the world that liked CORBA? I used ACE and TAO back in the day, and built multicast discovery mechanism to decentralize the ORB. Then the SOAP shitshow came to town, and now REST which is the rockstar, but people want better defined endpoints (RAML), um IDL was there in CORBA. REST is definitely easier to use than CORBA was, but it's much more limited, and it always feels like we're just reinventing the wheel. And yes, REST is better for web APIs, but it's always felt lacking after using CORBA.
1ris 10y ago
Check out Binary Lambda Calculus.
lelf 10y ago
Same. Was expecting something like http://www.haskellforall.com/2015/05/the-internet-of-code.html http://www.haskellforall.com/2015/05/the-internet-of-code.ht... https://github.com/Gabriel439/Haskell-Annah-Library https://github.com/Gabriel439/Haskell-Annah-Library
mreid 10y ago
It's been a while since I looked at it, but I think Computational REST (CREST) tried to do something like that: http://www.erenkrantz.com/CREST/ http://www.erenkrantz.com/CREST/

Shendare 10y ago

A URL for every function on GitHub, at least. Cool idea.

oh_sigh 10y ago
It appears to be namespaced, so presumably sourcegraph could add more repos at their own leisure.
- sqs 10y ago
  Sourcegrapher here. Indeed. Sourcegraph has repositories hosted elsewhere, such as https://sourcegraph.com/bitbucket.org/gotamer/bbpost/-/def/GoPackage/bitbucket.org/gotamer/bbpost/-/main.go/Options https://sourcegraph.com/bitbucket.org/gotamer/bbpost/-/def/G.... These are picked up by automated backend processes; if you have a Git repository that you'd like to specifically add, just email us (support@sourcegraph.com) or Tweet at us (https://twitter.com/srcgraph https://twitter.com/srcgraph) for now.
  - pc86 10y ago
    Any plans to support Hg or TFS?
    - sqs 10y ago
      Yep, we will, but we don't have a timeline for those right now. Any VCS that can implement this Repository interface (https://sourcegraph.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/-/def/GoPackage/sourcegraph.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/pkg/vcs/-/Repository https://sourcegraph.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/-/def/GoPack...) is fine. We have some code written to support Hg, but nothing ready to release yet.

sandebert 10y ago

...for an extremely narrow definition of "world". (Github)

sqs 10y ago
Sourcegrapher here. Git repositories hosted anywhere with Go or Java code will work. Admittedly, that's still narrow, but we are just beginning. :) Also, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11856255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11856255.

malchow 10y ago

Here's an example: https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/def/GoPackage/encoding/json/-/MarshalIndent https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/def/GoPackage...

sqs 10y ago
Sourcegrapher here. And if you want to see everywhere in the world that function is used, check out the usages list on the right side, which takes you here: https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/info/GoPackage/encoding/json/-/MarshalIndent https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/info/GoPackag....

skybrian 10y ago

For Go in particular, a possible alternative is godoc.org: https://godoc.org/flag#Arg https://godoc.org/flag#Arg

Nullabillity 10y ago
And Java has Javadoc, and so on. This seems interesting in that it's not just about the semantic docs, but actually provides an IDE-like source view in the browser. The closest I've seen before would probably be SXR/Scala X-Ray[1], but this seems much more polished. [1]: http://www.scala-sbt.org/0.13/sxr/CrossVersionUtil.scala.html http://www.scala-sbt.org/0.13/sxr/CrossVersionUtil.scala.htm...
- skybrian 10y ago
  For embedding into documentation, there's also a question of longevity. Which URL is less likely to break?

jesalg 10y ago

Curious why they decided not to work on adding Ruby support especially when underlying srclib which they use has support for it.

sqs 10y ago
Sourcegrapher here. We'll definitely release Ruby support in the future. Because Ruby has a lot of dynamic language features, it's important we do it well, and it takes some and thought. We track the coverage % of our analyzers for all languages we support, and our Ruby support isn't at our quality threshold yet. We'll release Ruby when we can do it almost as well as Go (e.g., https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/def/GoPackage/net/http/-/NewRequest https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/def/GoPackage...).
- jesalg 10y ago
  Nice, looking forward to it!

nojvek 10y ago

Would make a lot of node modules as functions redundant

kazinator 10y ago

Or, just embed the entire function in the URL. :)

alberto_balsalm 10y ago

Some of you may find Unison interesting: http://unisonweb.org/2015-05-07/about.html#post-start http://unisonweb.org/2015-05-07/about.html#post-start

sqs 10y ago

Sourcegraph founder here. We built this to make it much easier to grok code. It saves us hours every day. Would love to hear your feedback! The README has some good links to try Sourcegraph at https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/blob/master/READM...: https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/square/okhttp/-/def/JavaArtifact/com.squareup.okhttp3/okhttp/-/okhttp3/Request:type/Builder:type/method:java.lang.String:okhttp3.RequestBody https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/square/okhttp/-/def/JavaA... (semantic code browsing for Java) https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/info/GoPackage/net/http/-/NewRequest https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/golang/go/-/info/GoPackag... (http.NewRequest used in 8801 repositories) Sourcegraph supports Go and Java right now. If you want to get access to the upcoming beta of JavaScript, Python, or other languages, send us a note at support@sourcegraph.com or https://twitter.com/srcgraph https://twitter.com/srcgraph.

michaelmior 10y ago
> These URLs always refer to the latest definition and won’t break if the file is edited, unlike links to a specific line number. You can always get the URL on GitHub for a particular line number at a particular revision which won't break when the file changes. A persistent link to a function can break in a different way in that maybe the function, while named the same, changes behaviour in a way that it no longer does exactly what it originally did. It's not obvious to me which of these breakages is more relevant. When you talk about "hackable" URLs it would be great to be able to get a URL for a named function at a particular revision. This solves both problems. I have an immutable reference to a particular piece of code, but then by hacking the URL I should be able to still see the most recent version.
- beliu 10y ago
  Exactly! You mean like this? https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/gorilla/mux@9fa818a44c2bf1396a17f9d5a3c0f6dd39d2ff8e/-/def/GoPackage/github.com/gorilla/mux/-/CurrentRoute https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/gorilla/mux@9fa818a44c2bf...
  - 10y ago

danvoell 10y ago

I'm not sure if I understand this correctly, but my first thought is, what if the function that I am using needs to change? For instance, using css, if I later discover that the design was incorrect, I would rather just change the design code instead of updating each linking instance.

sqs 10y ago
Sourcegrapher here. This is for linking to the source code of functions (and other definitions), for when you are discussing or explaining code. It's not for importing code at compile time or runtime. P.S. Sourcegraph supports semantically linking to CSS as well: https://sourcegraph.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/-/def/basic-css/sourcegraph/-/app/node_modules/amplitude-js/documentation/styles/jsdoc-default.css%2523main https://sourcegraph.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/-/def/basic-....
- danvoell 10y ago
  Got it, thanks for the clarification.

Roritharr 10y ago

Hi, this looks very interesting but maybe more on the side of a feature i wish GitLab, Bitbucket etc would have than other getting a dedicated for.

sqs 10y ago
Sourcegraph founder here. If you install the Chrome extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sourcegraph-for-github/dgjhfomjieaadpoljlnidmbgkdffpack https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sourcegraph-for-gi...), you can get it on GitHub. Support for GitLab and Bitbucket is coming soon. And what's more, the Chrome extension actually adds # fragment URLs to github.com that are semantically meaningful, just like on Sourcegraph.

alpyne 10y ago

Sourcegraph folk, are you aware of Rich Hickey's codeq [0][1] for clojure: codeq allows you to track change at the program unit level (e.g. function and method definitions) and query your programs and libraries declaratively, with the same cognitive units and names you use while programming [0] http://blog.datomic.com/2012/10/codeq.html http://blog.datomic.com/2012/10/codeq.html [1] https://github.com/Datomic/codeq#codeq https://github.com/Datomic/codeq#codeq

sqs 10y ago
Sourcegraph founder here. Yep, that's an extremely compelling idea. We were definitely aware of this when we started Sourcegraph. Are you using codeq?
jpitz 10y ago
It lacks the ability to track changes, but BBQ http://browsebyquery.sourceforge.net/ http://browsebyquery.sourceforge.net/ can query JVM and CLR programs - and holy crap is that useful when you need it. Speaking of tracking changes at the method level, does anyone remember VisualAge for Java?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

waxjar 10y ago

What happens if a function is renamed?

sqs 10y ago
We don't handle that case right now, but it's a TODO. Will be an interesting problem to address.

zeveb 10y ago

Neat idea, although I'm not sold on the style of the URLs themselves. It'd be cool to introduce a new URL scheme: code://github.com/edicl/hunchentoot/master/log.lisp?macro=with-log-stream That would handle multiple definition namespaces. One could use code://github.com/edicl/hunchentoot/master/log.lisp?macro=with-log-stream&commit=0951a0df8fe93d99e6f2aa3f9612a2d6e581e84f to refer to a particular commit. No idea what the equivalent would look like for other VCSes though.

asimuvPR 10y ago
I've been toying with roughly the same idea for some months. I've come up with new URL schemes for JSON objects[1], and (Iot)hings[2]. They differ in what they do but the purpose is to explore how specific URL schemes could open the door for improvements. [1] json://the-domain.com/example Would return: {"json":"data"} [2] thing://ip-address/example In this case, it returns JSON for the sake of readability, so: {"name":"car","speed":88,"location":"1985"}
- zeveb 10y ago
  What would be the advantage of those schemes over HTTP? In the case of code, I can see that there's a potential benefit to being able to refer to conceptual objects (e.g. variables, functions, macros) within version control systems, and maybe that's worth breaking with HTTP URLs, although I'm not completely sold there. What would the advantage of json: be over Content-Type: TYPE+json? It's a little easier to see that iot:UUID might indicate something like 'over any number of protocols, over any number of networks, please contact this device in my locality' or somesuch.
  - asimuvPR 10y ago
    I'm exploring if there is a benefit to using new protocols for networked things. Mostly research. :)

ed 10y ago

It'd be cool if you could create a permalink from a github URL (with a line no. param). Then the interface could look like tinyurl (anonymously paste a github link, get a sourcegraph link in return). Bonus points if it simply redirects you to the new line number on GitHub's master.

sqs 10y ago
We have something like that—and better in some ways. Check out the Sourcegraph Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sourcegraph-for-github/dgjhfomjieaadpoljlnidmbgkdffpack https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sourcegraph-for-gi.... You get jump-to-def by clicking on code on GitHub. And it uses these semantic URLs in a backward-compatible way, so that they encode the definition/function name but also the line number (so anyone not using the extension can still use the URLs). It's a great idea to make a little app to get a permalink, too!

heynk 10y ago

This should be a great long-tail SEO boost. It's just like one of (Rap) Genius's best early SEO advantages, which was that they had a URL for every line. https://moz.com/blog/how-i-would-do-seo-for-rap-genius https://moz.com/blog/how-i-would-do-seo-for-rap-genius

partycoder 10y ago

You mean like RPC? If so take a look at Thrift, Protocol buffers, Avro, or whatever. If the idea is to just expose reusable functions, you can take a look at https://algorithmia.com/ https://algorithmia.com/

z3t4 10y ago

Most JS programmers seems to use modules (require/import) as masqueraded globals, like importing complexed functions instead of just standalone modules. And in that case it's better to just declare all dependencies in the root (html file). You would probably want to use a package manager though, to keep track of name conflicts and manage the script tags (dependencies of dependencies). As for central hosting of packages I think it will work. But we will probably need to be able to have many src attributes in script-tags for redundancy and optimal caching.

foota 10y ago

Don't we already have this in the form of NPM?

ricardobeat 10y ago

Please don't do this if you want future-proof URLs - that's the whole point of linking to a specific commit. Functions and files will get moved, renamed, refactored and deleted.