Ask HN: Is there a tool you use just for reading code?

When writing code, I'm a huge fan of using keyboard driven development. But sometimes I just want to read code, either to review or to learn things in a mouse-driven and read-only environment. Git forges seem like the obvious answer to this but they're slower to browse and not as customizable as your favorite text editor/IDE.

Is there an application you use to read code? And am I alone in feeling the need of such tool?

Find and grep.

I don’t understand what is special about what you’re describing that isn’t done in hundred different IDEs

If it’s a project I already have open in VS Code, I won’t use a separate tool.

If it’s a single file I want to check out, I have an alias for “nvim -R” which I use a lot. Vim’s syntax highlighting is very good, prevents me from making accidental changes, and is very convienent if I’m in the terminal already.

If I’m looking at code on GitHub then their code-search feature is very cool (cs.GitHub.com or by pressing cmd+shift+f on GitHub).

see: https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail , even tho the project is marked archived, it's pretty solid, i personally still use a 2019 release.

i also have a self hosted instance of this : https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source

what you asked, comes across with code auditing as well, i wasn't surprised to know security researchers use sourcetrail as well.

hope your favourite language is supported.

Not quite what you're asking but once I've narrowed down a code base to the particular area of interest, I use an old school method for grokking:

Print the relevant sections off to read and use pen to mark and note against them; I find it extremely useful (and less tiring on the eyes) for linking functions and clarifying code.