Code Armory

I’ve been using Gists a lot recently to pass code back and forth between myself and my co-workers, and I’m starting to realize more and more how valuable good code snippets can be. I find myself perusing Github all the time to see what other people are working on and half the time I stumble upon some small, reusable piece of code that I force myself to grab and dump into my own little directory of code snippets.

The more and more I collect, the more I realize the process of finding good code snippets on the web is pretty terrible. I often just hit google and wind up on stack overflow, having to sift through a bunch of people’s ramblings and log files and whatnot. Why isn’t there a better place to search for these small bits of wonder-code?

I set out to see if it already existed, and it turns out that it doesn’t. So I plan on creating one.

###Side Story My sister-in-law went into labor last week so my wife and I went down to Lemoore Naval Air Station to see the baby. As I was driving off the base I saw a sign indicating which way to turn to get to the Armory. That’s when it hit me. This code snippet site need not only focus on code snippets. I want to make it a place where developers get equipped in every way they need.

###The Plan Offer the soldiers (developers) a chance to stock up on weapons (snippets), load up on ammo (frameworks/libraries), engage in training (walkthroughs) and choose their barracks (development environments). The latter will most likely allow for users to peruse various vagrant boxes and associated chef recipes (if you don’t know about vagrant, get it).

###Implementation Like I said I love Gists. Rather than re-inventing the wheel this new project is simply going to leverage gists. I’ll add some meta-data to various gists to create a place where code snippets can be searched and saved more easily.

Why hasn’t Github added this to Gist already? My bet is they’ve been busy. You know, redefining how everyone codes? They might get around to improving Gist, but for now, I’m taking it upon myself. Who’s with me?

###I Need Help I don’t know about you, but this sounds like a dream to me. But I’m going to need help in getting some solid content onto this site. If you can help spread the word, or send me some code snippets you’ve found to be invaluable, it would go a long way toward getting this project off the ground.