Sourcetrail

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-... but for your code, e

> If people do find themselves in that situation, the best answer is "unionize". The second best answer is to work with your coworkers to adopt better practices (it is very unlikely that they are going to fire you all all at once). And the third best answer is to do the job well, regardless of what is going on around you, and if you get fired you get fired. That's a pretty nice way to view things! I've been lucky enough to mostly be in environments where I can work towards that (even if there is the occasional enterprise legacy project that can feel as a maze). But at the same time, even in better circumstances, people can get lazy, I certainly do, and are sometimes also set in their ways. In those cases, I'll take any automated tools that will make it easier to do things in more organized and better ways - e.g. automatic code formatting

This is pretty cool! Reminds me of the now defunct SourceTrail tool: https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail Actually, seeing lines between the code and where you opened it from would most likely be useful!

This appears to be the only fork that's at least somewhat active: https://github.com/OpenSourceSourceTrail/Sourcetrail But overall, there is little activity in any of the forks, without anyone necessarily spearheading the effort: https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail/forks?include=a...

By chance did you mean Sourcetrail [1] instead of Sourcegraph? Old demo video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Cfu6f0uyzc8?si=oNS9KKlbgEk_Ct0p. [1] https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail

I wish something existed in this space. I used Coati Software's Sourcetrail for a couple of years. Unfortunately it was discontinued. It was a wonderful piece of software that indexed a code repository, and exposed an interface to explore it interactively. At least for me, it significantly improved the understanding and legibility of code. The code is in an archived state (https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail). Searching for the software on Google shows some screenshots.

I think it might make large scale code visualization in a similar way to how SourceTrail does it more feasible: https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail

Sourcetrail actually tried to do that for a select few languages https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail Sadly, they retired the entire project a while back.

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.

> So, is it a good idea to try documenting the code design through some sort of visualization? Yes, if it helps you understand how it works and how the pieces fit together. No, if the previous is not all that useful for you (different types of learners), or you need to spend significant amounts of time doing it manually, especially given that code could change. If you can, look into any tool that might allow you to get visualizations in an automated manner. For example, JetBrains IDEs have a few different graph visualizations for dependencies and inheritance etc.: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/2022.1/tests-in-ide.html... There also used to be SourceTrail, though sadly the project is now retired: https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail For databases, you can also use external tools like DbVis: https://www.dbvis.com/features/ The

Sourcetrail (Google) had been my primary go-to for large multi-MLOC C-code and C++ project like Mozilla Firefox recently for me. I can now insert instrumentation testpoints deep inside Firefox JavaScript JIT engine within two days from zero-knowledge, quicker there on. - Sourcetrail (GUI/Linux/Windows, closed-net-capable, archived) - https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail - SourceInsight (repo/web-server/closed-net) https://www.sourceinsight.com/ - OpenGrok (web server plug-in/Java/closed-net) https://oracle.github.io/opengrok/ - CLion (GUI-based IDE) - By IntelliJ/JetBrains - https://www.jetbrains.com/clion/ - SourceGraph (Web-based) https://about.sourcegraph.com (thanks, gravypod) - Codesee.io (GitHub/web-based) - https://www.codesee.io/privacy-and-security For free as in beer, I prefer OpenGrok so I can get more than JetBrains

The now retired SourceTrail is still a pretty good tool, it supports C++, Java and Python https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail

https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail Helped me improve my understanding of last codebase and their design

https://sourcegraph.com/search ? I always get it confused with self-hosted https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail but I think Sourcetrail just shut down.