This is a pretty cool research project. I do not use Visual Studio but being able to search for and use code-snippets inline can be quite the productivity booster. Lord knows how many times I use google.

Have you considered perhaps including more data sources ? I'd imagine for example a public code repository like Github or Codeplex will extend the range of possible "How Do I" questions that can be answered.

On an unrelated note, I have almost always been disappointed by the search-quality of Github. I know they have a lot of public code but they don't do a good job of surfacing relevant code results. Imagine for example, how cool it will be being able to type into Github, "How to compute MD5, C++" and seeing the relevant code.

Actually, thinking about it, there is nothing preventing Microsoft Research from taking this tech, and turning it into a natural language web code search service. Now that would be awesome !

There's alot more that can be done with the technology. We wanted to start with a few core partners and drive the quality and relevancy up as we go - so, can we? Sure. It's a matter continuously improving the service

And, agreed, MSR does some cool stuff :)

I just tried putting "site:github.com How to compute MD5, C++" into Google, and it seems to work.

As you mention, GitHub doesn't fare that well: "We couldn't find any repositories matching 'How to compute MD5, C++'"

awesome extension. i'd love to see it open sourced so we can use it in PTVS & NTVS.

PTVS: http://pytools.codeplex.com NTVS: http://nodejstools.codeplex.com

disclaimer: msft employee.

I'm wondering if there is a risk of being shown code snippets that represent "Do NOT do the following: ..."? Otherwise, really cool project!

We try and avoid those cases, but it's possible yes. The semantic and contextual approach help you find relevant samples and discussions that are highly relevant to your code, you still have to vet whether the sample makes sense. (Visiting the original sample page is likely to shed more light on those cases where we mis-label)

I just tried the web demo and loved it, so added it to visual studio, but now it works different. I really liked the /// search term [tab] idea.

Now i have to [ctrl] + [space], click on how do i, then search. Is there an easier keyboard only way like your web example?

I assume there's no intention to open source this? Now I'm thinking about making something like this for IntelliJ :)

Hi, how do you check if the snippet it pulls from stackoverflow works? Static analysis?

Static analysis is part of how we grade the samples (using Roslyn). Obviously this tool isn't a magic wand, the goal is to get you as close as possible to relevant results that you can dig deeper into

I'd guess so. It's pretty easy with roslyn these days.

Roslyn can solve the halting problem and tell me if my program will do what it is supposed to do?

I'd love to know more.