Sourcegraph wants to be the Google of code, even though code search is harder than web search

As opposed to web search, most people don’t use, know, or care about code search. In some ways, however, code search is harder, and perhaps more important, than web search. At least, this is what Quinn Slack, co-founder and CEO of Sourcegraph thinks. We caught up to discuss what makes Sourcegraph special, and what this funding will bring about.

Sourcegraph secured $23 million in Series B funding led by Craft Ventures with participation from earlier investors Redpoint Ventures, Goldcrest Capital and others. Sourcegraph touts its Universal Code Search as enabling developers to explore and better understand all code, everywhere, faster, and has clients like Uber, Lyft, Yelp and Plaid.

“With more code, languages, and systems to integrate than ever before, the job of the developer is exponentially more difficult than 5-10-15 years ago”. This statement by Slack should give even non-developers a glimpse into why a developer’s work is hard. The amount of code in the world today may not be as much as the amount of documents on the web, but it’s definitely on the rise.

Some developers, and projects, are more organized than others. No matter how organized you are, however, in the end the sheer volume of it all becomes overwhelming. This is why code search is needed. Slack said Sourcegraph wants to be the Google of code. Even though code search is used by less people than web search, Slack believes it’s actually harder.

Read the full article on ZDNet