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Sourcetrail, interactive source explorer, is now free and open-source

sourcetrail.com

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Re: Sourcetrail, interactive source explorer, is now free and open-source

#21

Post by darrenkopp »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #7
McKayDavis wrote: post #3

The site seems to be having intermittent connection issues due to the HN hug-of-death. In the meantime here's their Github repo: https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail

Thanks for the link; the site is indeed down for me. Honestly HN generates nowhere near enough traffic (from experience) that a site with any semblance of sane design/architecture cannot handle on even the constrained resources of a RaspberryPi. Reddit /r/all on the other hand, I can understand.

It's also fairly high up on a few subreddits, so it's not just HN traffic.

Re: Sourcetrail, interactive source explorer, is now free and open-source

#22

Post by lstamour »

McKayDavis wrote: post #3

The site seems to be having intermittent connection issues due to the HN hug-of-death. In the meantime here's their Github repo: https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail

In addition, if you like what you’re seeing here and want to support this project as open source, please consider a monthly donation: https://www.patreon.com/sourcetrail/overview

I was a happy licensed user for the Java project I was working on, but had to stop using Sourcetrail when I switched jobs and started with .NET and TypeScript. So I’ve been working to create indexers against their open source SDK in the last few weeks. That the project is now open source means it’s making my spare-time effort of writing an indexer that much easier, and I personally look forward to contributing more to the project. I think graph visualization of source code has a bright future ahead of it, and there’s plenty of opportunity to crowdsource improvements to Sourcetrail that will benefit even more developers. This seems like a smart move... if they can financially support themselves at an open source initiative like this.

If anyone wants to pitch in on the TypeScript indexer, I’ve an SourcetrailDB SDK diagram I put together at https://github.com/LouisStAmour/SourcetrailTypescriptIndexer... and a thread with ongoing notes and Node.js bindings at https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/SourcetrailDB/issues/2#issu...

Re: Sourcetrail, interactive source explorer, is now free and open-source

#23

Post by lstamour »

hoistbypetard wrote: post #16

I wonder if selling integrations with language server[1] implementations would be a way to multiply the customer base enough to make this viable as a business. [1]: https://langserver.org

It’s come up before and it’s harder to do via LSP, though the servers themselves would be great as an educational tool on what’s required. https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail/issues/685#issu...

If indexers were to be maintained separately, the only thought I have is something based on an IDE like Eclipse or IntelliJ, or something based on SourceGraph. To that end, I think open sourcing will do more to support usage, and usage would drive further licensing/support...

It’s possible there could be add-ons sold to help refactor code or maybe a web-based version, perhaps merging with SourceGraph as a client? Or use in code review? Lots of possibilities, perhaps, just not easily/quickly commercial I would think without further development first.

Re: Sourcetrail, interactive source explorer, is now free and open-source

#24

Post by hoistbypetard »

lstamour wrote: post #23
hoistbypetard wrote: post #16

I wonder if selling integrations with language server[1] implementations would be a way to multiply the customer base enough to make this viable as a business. [1]: https://langserver.org

It’s come up before and it’s harder to do via LSP, though the servers themselves would be great as an educational tool on what’s required. https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail/issues/685#issu... If indexers were to be maintained separately, the only thought I have is something based on an IDE like Eclipse or IntelliJ, or something based on SourceGraph. To that end, I think open sourcing will do more to suppor…

That makes sense. Thanks.

Re: Sourcetrail, interactive source explorer, is now free and open-source

#25

Post by xvilka »

hoistbypetard wrote: post #16

I wonder if selling integrations with language server[1] implementations would be a way to multiply the customer base enough to make this viable as a business. [1]: https://langserver.org

It makes more sense to integrate [1] with GitHub Semantic [2] library instead.

[1] https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail/issues/750

[2] https://github.com/github/semantic

Re: Sourcetrail, interactive source explorer, is now free and open-source

#28

Post by TeMPOraL »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #18
hoistbypetard wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what lesson to draw either, but I kind of suspect that the situations where this tool adds the most value (e.g. a developer needs to jump into a code base without anyone around to help orient exploration) are also the situations where there's least likely to be funding. And in that particular example, if the developer is new to the org, it is a situation where they're unlikely to know how to/feel comfort…

Such a tool is not only useful for a junior. It is also useful for (incomplete list I assume) * The consultant coming to a project for a short period of time * The software architect, observing the code layout periodically (for example to identify where lower layers of the software depend on higher layers)

Yes. Also, unless you define seniority on a per-company level, derived from actual time spent in the company, then you'll have plenty of senior developers landing in the middle of a legacy codebase that's new to them.

(And then, there are projects you look at very briefly. Just a few days ago, I used Sourcetrail to explore a certain research CLI application. I mostly needed to know how it does a few particular things, and Sourcetrail was useful for finding my way around the exceedingly complex class graph quickly.)

There's no good tool out there for reading source code. Sourcetrail is a step forward that's useful for anyone.

Re: Sourcetrail, interactive source explorer, is now free and open-source

#29

Post by egraether »

McKayDavis wrote: post #3

The site seems to be having intermittent connection issues due to the HN hug-of-death. In the meantime here's their Github repo: https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail

The heavy server load is also caused by lots of downloads. You can get the latest Sourcetrail 2019.4 now also from GitHub https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail/releases
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