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nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Visual Source Explorer Now Supports Python

Here is the release post that describes the Python integration a bit more detailed: https://www.sourcetrail.com/blog/sourcetrail_supports_python...

nebucnauton Biology Student Discovers Plastic-Eating Bacteria

So you have a "best before" date on your plastic bags?

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Thank you again for your request. We now offer a plugin for VS code: https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/vsce-sourcetrail

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Oh, we have a time bound evaluation testing period available: https://www.sourcetrail.com/trial#test-license

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Thank you for sharing your opinion! This will be exactly what we will be interested in when deciding what language to tackle next :)

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Those are probably caused by an issue in your project setup, but I don't think that this is the right place to go into details. If you like to investigate, please send us an e-mail!

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

A Compile Command is a JSON file entry that specifies what the C/C++ compiler should do when compiling a file. So it defines a file to compile and all the required flags (like include paths or preprocessor defines). These Compile Commands are used for all kind of Clang based tools. You can read more here: https://clang.llvm.org/docs/JSONCompilationDatabase.html

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Yes, we support Compile Commands :)

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Yes, Sourcetrail also shows class internal calls and accessed fields. Code Maps in VS has a different approach because they try to keep the graph small by making the user add symbols. So if you are trying to see every access of a symbol it is easy to miss something. Sourcetrail on the other hand keeps the graph small and comprehensible by showing only one level of dependencies. You don't need to add anything yourself. So you cannot miss any relation ;)

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Oh, that's an easy question :) You can either follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Sourcetrail) or just sign up for our mailing list (https://www.sourcetrail.com/#get-started). I promise that we won't spam you ;)

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Unfortunately it doesn't. Even though Scala and Java output the same kind of bytecode, these languages have different language specifications. We currently only support what's in the JLS.

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Happy to hear that you like it! Full support of Python won't be easy but maybe we could tackle this one in stages. Implement highly demanded features in a first Python release and improve on that later on.

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Thank you for the kind words! We are always happy to hear from a satisfied customer :)

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

To be honest: We have not decided what language we will pick up next. Our first priority is to improve on our Java coverage. In a few months we should be ready to choose our next language. We are thinking about either tackling Python or implement support for a more recent language like Kotlin, Swift or Go.

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Yes, dynamically typed languages are much harder to tackle :/

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

We have been working on that for the past few month. Right now the performance is pretty good for C++ projects up to around 2 million lines of code. For C projects the performance is even better! If you want to test it, just download the pre-indexed clang project (900k loc) from our website (https://www.sourcetrail.com/downloads#extra). Indexing the project took 12 minutes on a 5 year old laptop.

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Right, it's "just" Java, C and C++ for now but we are planning to extend our available languages as soon as possible!

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Kotlin is definitely on the shortlist for the next language to be supported! Which language we'll pick up exactly depends on the landscape of available tools for that language. Kotlin is pretty new so I guess that there could be a need for Sourcetrail :)

nebucnauton Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code

Indeed, everything's offline! You don't even need an internet connection to run Sourcetrail :)

nebucnauton Ask HN: Best way to support community for small open source projects?

Some time ago I met the people behind SmartGit (a cross platform git client) and they told me that using Google groups worked quite well for this purpose.

Here's a link to their group so you can get an impression: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/smartgit

nebucnauton Ask HN: Why do so few software developers use software visualization tools?

"that's very easy for me to either quickly draw on paper or imagine it in my head"

Good point, but it's only easy to draw or imagine if you already know everything involved. In my opinion software visualization should not just be about visualizing what you already know but instead about providing information that you don't know. So you don't need to go through all of your code files in order to draw that inheritance diagram.

"number of users are not visual"

I think I don't know any programmer who hasn't already scribbled some kind of diagram on a piece of paper ;)

nebucnauton Ask HN: Why do so few software developers use software visualization tools?

I agree that you don't need visualization if you already know the code and the internal references. But even people who work on a code base every day cannot stay on top of every feature or refactoring of their coworkers while being productive theirselfs. I think that in bigger teams reading unknown source code continues to be part of the job ;)

nebucnauton Ask HN: Why do so few software developers use software visualization tools?

Actually I started this question to hear some oppinions, not to advertize a certain tool, but I'll answer you anyways. I'm one of the makers of Coati (http://www.coati.io/) and I'm using that tool quite extensively. I don't wanna say that it's perfect and everyone should use it (at least not in this Ask HN), because I want this to be a more general discussion ;)

nebucnauton Coati 0.10 released – cross-platform source explorer for C, C++ and Java

This is not covered in the blogpost, but we also updated our website (https://www.coati.io/) to give much more information about Coati itself and much less blabla!

nebucnauton Parameter or Argument?

Actually I'm working with Clang so that's when and why I wrote this article ;)

nebucnauton Parameter or Argument?

It doesn't matter if no one cares. It matters if 2 devs are talking and only one distinguished between these terms. In that case he has a chance of getting really confused qickly ;)

nebucnauton Show HN: Lightweight C++ editor that understands your code

First and most important: Great project! Writing an editor must be a whole lot of work! Especially when source code analysis is included. You said that you're using clang there. I've also been working with clang (for more than two years by now) and I've got to say that it's a great tool when it comes down to source code analysis. It's a little hard to get into, but it's totally worth the effort - especially when templates are involved. You wouldn't wanna analyze such code on your own ;) So I think you don't regret using clang there, do you?

Now some feedback: - I really like how your file search and the file tree interact! - It would be nice to show the definitions of local variables (e.g. inside a function scope). Or even better: Highlight all usages that variable throughout the scope! That would really help keeping track of things.

nebucnauton Ask HN: I have a business idea, what now?

Currently I'm about to start a tech company myself. But I'm not on my own. I found a great team while finishing my masters degree at the university. Even though founding a company is a ton of work, you learn a lot by doing so. Thus, here is the advice I can give:

Silicon Valley is a good place for you to go when you need to get in touch with other tech companies. But in order to find skilled developers you don't need to go to Silicon Valley at all. I'm living in Austria and I know that there are excellent developers right here (and I bet the same is true for Germany). You just have to know where to find them. And once you found them you need to start talking to them. I know its hard to tell total strangers about your big idea, but it needs to be done. You don't need to worry about someone stealing the idea as long as you and your expertise are still required. If the developer you told about the idea wanted to do it without you, he would face exactly the same problem as you do right now. He would need to find someone like you. And convince him of your idea. So why should he bother stealing the idea in the first place if he could just join you?

So, where do you find people that have a technical background and are also prepared to take some risks? Go to coworking spaces. That is where you find people that may be working as freelancers or in small teams up to 3 or 4 people (if the team gets bigger than that its often cheaper to rent an office for your own). But maybe you shouldn't just walk in there and distract people from their work. From time to time such coworking spaces host events. Usually they post about it somewhere on the web. And usually the people that work at the space go to such events. So this would be an ideal chance for you to talk to people that are both talented and not bound to a fixed job. My advice: Go there.

And now a suggestion concerning investors and money: Consider public funding. There are many funds that you don't have to pay back and in contrast to an investor the funding organizations don't ask for shares.