Well, the Google Code Search announcement is sure abuzzin’ out there. This CNet story popped up…

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And Nik Cubrilovic posted about it at TechCrunch a few hours ago, quoted herewith:

“All of these search engines have a long way to go before they become a shortcut way for developers to find code – especially considering that most developers are astute at using ordinary search engines to find what they are looking for. Searching for a phrase like “drop-down menu in ajax” won’t return anything usefull, so developers who don’t know which specific string within code they are looking for will have a hard time. Track record would suggest that Google are the company to most likely get this right, by combining the information they have in their main search engine with the source code data for better results … This looks like bad news for the startups in this space who will need to further innovate, but it is good news for Google, a company that hasn’t really been hitting home runs recently with some of it’s (sic) recent new products.”

But in an earlier post this morning on Digital Alchemy, Krugle gets a nice review:

“Krugle’s search interface is much more sophisticated, incorporating ‘sub-tabbed’ browsing and tree navigation of source code, which makes code a lot easier to read and interpret. Google does have one interesting feature: it indicates how many identical files are in its database, allowing you to see how widespread a piece of code is.”

More soon from Krugle on their reaction to this announcement. One can only surmise the startup had a crisis plan of sorts in place for the prospect of this day arriving….

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