I came up with an idea this afternoon for a source code visualizer for Enterprise solutions. Basically it would provide a source code cloud built from files and their dependencies. Each cloud would be a logical block (function, if-statement, loop, etc.) and the user would be able to zoom in/out to any level as needed. You would then work on an application as a whole rather than on a set of files. Everything would still be saved out to standard files, but the entire application would be accessible in a visual manner that wouldn’t require lots of commands to open and close said files.
Basically I want to be able to quickly move between parts of a project using the Mac OS X Expose feature, but without subjecting myself to Mac OS X. I also want seamless integration with VIM. CloudVIM if you will…
The app would also tie into another idea I had a while back: multi-history versioning for files. Basically I want to be able to view the state of a file at any given point during my editing session, even if that means branching into multiple edit histories. Combining these ideas into CloudVIM would allow a developer to easily navigate to any source code at any time within a specified timespan. Coupled with SVN for storage this would provide a powerful debugging model I think.
We need a good use for 1TB hard disks anyway.
Tags: Expose, OS X, source code, tag cloud, VIM, visualization, zoom