Adrien Kunysz, Sat, Feb 6 2016 10:29:45 GMT
[I wrote this in 2016 but somehow forgot to publish it until 2021]
Last weekend was my 13th FOSDEM1. As is usual, much drinking and catching up with people was involved. During one such conversation Gof was explaining to me how he implemented symbol indexing in the Woboq Code Browser.
Basically, all the logic is client-side. An index is built by the user's browser and then stored locally. Furthermore, instead of keeping it in memory or using some fancy database which would require going back to the server or embedding more third party code into their JavaScript they use the filesystem. This means that for any reference, they create a file by its name whose content includes the references.
Yes, that's a practical application of the drunken hack I described a bit over two years ago. Welcome to the wonderful world of software engineering.
1. As I dig up the FOSDEM archives I notice that one of the kernel hackers who gave a talk I could barely make sense of back in 2004 is now reviewing my design docs.