One of the mirages that has been on the horizon in application development for too long to recall is a good repository of all the coding assets available to programmers and developers within and, Heavens to Mergatroid, outside the organization. I know, I know. All you IBM SAA, Microsoft Repository, and Unisys Object Repository users, both helpful and hateful – this is as bad as Mission Impossible 3. Well, Krugle has taken a slightly out-of-the-box approach and has managed to deliver pretty close to A Fully Functional Mirage. The Krugle trick is to apply search engine technology and an online smart workspace approach to the problem – and voila here is Krugle. And now developers will not have to trepidate when the project managers says the words “Reuse” or “find that code for me that I saw at the Linux Open Source show”.
As one can hopefully make out from the screenshot, Krugle goes well beyond the Google/Yahoo search engine response. Searches of the general World View (think appache.org, eclipse.com, sourceforge.net and other primarily opensource websites) can be captured and inserted into a Project View (see Tab in the directory and file tree panel on the right of the screenshot). One can search not only code (.c, .java, .h, .html, .php, .sql, .wsdl, .xml, and dozens of other source filetypes) but also the documentation and other resources/files associated with a project. And if Extreme Programmers are right – they should only search the code files and be happy campers.
Meanwhile, the rest of us developers should find Krugles ability to search non-code resources extremely helpful. Here is exactly how Krugle describes their tools:
Find Answers. By clicking on the “find content”
button, you search relevant technical sites for
non-code information, such as code dependencies,
licensing information, compatibility requirements,
bug reports and news group postings.
Code Annotations. Krugle allows users to
annotate entire code files or specific lines of code.
Save and Share Search Results. Collect a group
of search windows with a single reference. Create
a tag with one click that preserves the state of
your Krugle search window. Email it to a colleague
or group for better team interaction and
communication.
API Report. Krugle automatically generates an
API report explaining how any code component
is integrated with other components. Today API
documentation is a laborious process, done only
after careful study of the entire code module.
Personally, I salivate at prospects of getting my hands on the Code Annotations, Save and Share Search Results, and the API Report capabilities. The good news is that this is publicly available in the Krugle beta and the company intends to make the major site free(local organizational Krugle installations will be the source of revenues among others). The bad news is that the beta is full, this is a very hot property, and so how it eventually reaches the market is anybodys guess.
But do stay tuned for more.
(c)JBSurveyer 2006