Comments on: AllTheCode Launches New Code Search

By: Holden

Holden — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:56:43 +0000

Nik:
The input filtering is certainly an issue that I overlooked, I’ve spent most of my time working on the back end, and the frontend didn’t receive much attention. The input filtering issues should be fixed now
Ben:
Right now All The Code is only searching the low hanging fruits (.java files with the right content type which parse and in the AWSP database). I’m looking at adding cvs/svn and inspecting archive files to grow the amount of code that is in the index. I’ll admit the UI still needs a lot of work, I’m trying to find someone who has a better sense of design than I do to work on that

By: Alexey Gavrilov

Alexey Gavrilov — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 23:46:41 +0000

I interview a lot of programmers and I hate it when to my “how would you do that” they say — “I don’t know, but I can google it”. It seems that there is entire new class of “google copy and paste programmers”, which just makes me scary. These guys can’t code without google and they just brainlessly copy pieces of someone else’s broken code making software, which is insecure, unreliable and depends upon three implementations of XML parser, two GUI libraries etc… So yup, let’s improve the code search — let’s produce more brainless programmers, who will make more awful software.

By: Nik Cubrilovic

Nik Cubrilovic — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 23:16:43 +0000

Hey Ken, I understand the problems you guys are facing, I am sure that it can be done though

Ben: Very cool

I took a second look at AllTheCode today and it seems broken in many ways, the lack of input filtering is remarkable, it even allows you to inject Javascript into the main search box:

http://search.allthecode.com/s.....int=Search

Unbelievable, its 2007 and developers are still making such fundamental mistakes. I don’t think I would have written about this if I had tested the above.

I doubt Google will hire this guy

Xiang: Thanks for the pointer, I will include them in the next wrap-up. I haven’t heard about them before.

By: Ben Strackany

Ben Strackany — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:28:40 +0000

Thanks for the tip Nik. I did a quick comparison (with screenshots) of AllTheCode, Krugle, Koders, and Google Code Search here:

http://www.developmentnow.com/.....+Code.aspx

I searched java code for “luhn” (i.e. the credit card validation algorithm).

By: Emre Sokullu

Emre Sokullu — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 17:46:30 +0000

Google Code Search is already way ahead of its competitors for me.

By: Ken Krugler

Ken Krugler — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:28:10 +0000

Hi Nik,

The main problem with returning good hits for a query such as “md5″ is that it’s hard to figure out what type of search the user is doing.

For example, are they looking for an implementation of the MD5 algorithm (actual source code), or finding some existing components that they can call, or finding examples of how to call some component that they already know about?

I’d blogged about this issue previously (http://blog.krugle.com/?p=193) - what I called “Semantic code search”.

By: nardman

nardman — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:40:11 +0000

Holden is a young guy and very very smart from what I’ve seen. Expect to see him working for Google soon.

By: Xiang

Xiang — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:39:33 +0000

As far as I know, Codase http://www.codase.com has been live for at least more then one year. I am curious why no news portal ever mentioned while newcomers in this field even got much bigger fundings and attentions. Looks like Codase did not do a good job to promote itself.

By: Denver

Denver — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 14:15:31 +0000

Java only!!!

By: Rxbbx

Rxbbx — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 14:13:30 +0000

Looks real shit in FF

By: Marcus

Marcus — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 13:39:24 +0000

Searching for anything with a special character such as a colon or bracket in it will throw a rails application error… I imagine that when searching for code that happens quite a bit, seems like it could be handled a little better by a code search engine.

By: l

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 11:30:29 +0000

I like krugle better.
But eventually Google will win this war, if there is any.

By: wasssallx

wasssallx — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 11:07:12 +0000

Madonna after car crash…
http://www.businessinvestia.com

By: Thomas Shine

Thomas Shine — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 10:55:17 +0000

see this http://enginepuller.com/engine.....earch.aspx

By: Carlos Mantero

Carlos Mantero — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 09:07:07 +0000

Without any doubt, the best way for this work, is consult various code search engines, as he says above. AllTheCode still have much work for do.

By: RBA

RBA — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 08:46:46 +0000

Well, in the AllTheCode front page it says “Java Only for now”, so I guess that’s why you’ve got mainly Java results to your MD5 search. I don’t know if that note was there when you reviewed it though…