3 ms·
Sourcetrail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourcetrail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourcetrail People talk so much about how you need to write code that fits
by KronisLV 1y ago
Sourcetrail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourcetrail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourcetrail
People talk so much about how you need to write code that fits well within the rest of the codebase, but what tools do we have to explore codebases and see what is connected to what? Clicking through files feels kind of stupid because if you have to work with changes that involve 40 files, good luck keeping any of that in your working memory. In my experience, the JetBrains dependency graphs also aren't good enough.
Sourcetrail was a code visualization tool that allowed you to visualize those dependencies and click around the codebase that way, see what methods are connected to what and so on, thanks to a lovely UI. I don't think it was enough alone, but I absolutely think we need something like this: https://www.dbvis.com/features/database-management/#explore-visualize https://www.dbvis.com/features/database-management/#explore-... but for your code, especially for codebases with hundreds of thousands or like above a million SLoC.
Example: https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail/blob/master/docs/readme/user_interface.png https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail/blob/master/doc...
Another example: https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail/blob/master/docs/documentation/graph_view_graph.png https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail/blob/master/doc...
I yearn to some day view entire codebases as graphs with similarly approachable visualization, where all the dependencies are highlighted when I click an element. This could also go so, so much further - you could have a debugger breakpoint set and see the variables at each place, alongside being able to visually see how code is called throughout the codebase, or hell, maybe even visualize every possible route that could be taken.
- saratogacx 1y agoThere's a commercial tool that has been available for a long time called Source Insight[1]. It isn't exactly cheap but I've used it in the past for both code splunking and editing and it's was a pretty useful tool. [1] https://www.sourceinsight.com/ https://www.sourceinsight.com/
- KronisLV 1y agoThanks for the link!