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A comment on Launch HN: Greptile (YC W24) - RAG on codebases that actually works. Parent comment

Re:Launch HN: Greptile (YC W24) - RAG on codebases that actu... by smokel on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @12:43PM (#39606770)
Indeed. Code describes how something is done, and possibly what is done, but it seldom fully describes why something is done, or why code exists in the first place.

The latter is typically the realm of requirements, design documentation, and possibly test plans.

Generating such documentation from code seems quite impossible, or at least wrong.

It is unfortunate that most open source software is lacking in such documentation, giving off bad signals to junior developers.

Edit: not to take away from the product being discussed here, which seems very useful! I am merely supporting the parent here.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Launch HN: Greptile (YC W24) - RAG on codebases that actu... by eikenberry on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @03:15PM (#39608658)
> The latter is typically the realm of requirements, design documentation, and possibly test plans.

You forgot one of the biggest spots for "why" documentation... git commit messages, where the point is to say why you made this change. Maybe taking into account the commit messages around the code in question would help.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Launch HN: Greptile (YC W24) - RAG on codebases that actu... by smokel on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @03:18PM (#39608704)
"Initial commit" is my goto commit message.

Still a great idea, though. Ingesting all data from JIRA may be beneficial as well.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Launch HN: Greptile (YC W24) - RAG on codebases that actu... by eikenberry on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @05:06PM (#39609722)
Yep... and the why of that message is apparent and makes perfect sense for the first commit. If you only ever start projects and never work on them again, that is all you need.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Launch HN: Greptile (YC W24) - RAG on codebases that actu... by colordrops on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @07:29PM (#39610824)
If you don't use proper commit messages you also probably don't have proper docs
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Launch HN: Greptile (YC W24) - RAG on codebases that actu... by levelforge on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @12:01AM (#39612509)
We already do that and more at Maru.ai - reach out if you're interested.
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Re:Launch HN: Greptile (YC W24) - RAG on codebases that actu... by dakshgupta on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @03:02PM (#39608504)
This is a great point, and something we think about. I think to an extent a super smart version of our product could infer intent from the code but there would be definitely something amiss if the author's intent was just never available.
[ Parent | on HN ]