A nascent developer, Anthony Nguyen felt a need for a dedicated source code search engine. The intention behind developing this search engine was to yield exact syntax and clear concepts for every programming language. To serve the syntax needs of every developer, Nguyen developed SyntaxDB. He aimed SyntaxDB to become the world’s largest programming reference and procured success in it.
What is SyntaxDB?
It is one of the search engines available in the market like Google, but exclusively for programmers. Various programming constructs like loops and conditions are embedded with examples in different programming languages.
Currently, SyntaxDB supports 9 programming languages- Java, C, C++, C#, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Swift, and Go. It provides a rich database of valuable code snippets for referencing, making the job easier for a developer.
Why SyntaxDB should be a developer’s toolbox essential?
Apart from being an enormous programming manual, SyntaxDB provides a fine set of attributes that attract a developer. We will discuss some of them here.
1. Extensive integration
Since the primary focus of SyntaxDB is to reduce the Google searches developers perform every day, it provides rich integration with platforms beyond website too.
With this integration, DuckDuckGo will feature the most relevant programming syntax at the top of search results.
Slack offers a separate dedicated channel called ‘SyntaxBot’. The bot retrieves the results from SyntaxDB and lets you easily look up syntax for any programming language.
SyntaxDB designed a plugin which allows quickly searching SyntaxDB from VScode window.
SyntaxDB allows writing your own extensions and integrations using its API.
2. Robust developer community
SyntaxDB has a huge community of volunteering developers willing to add material to its database. This increases the amount of content which can be referenced by the search engine. Nguyen encourages content contributions from other software engineers to refine the search engine’s interface.
3. Increasing efficiency of modern software development
A large industry level project requires extensive cross-language programming and it becomes very difficult to each construct in different languages. If a developer knows a code component in a particular language and wants to understand how to implement that code component in a different language, SyntaxDB does it for them by suggesting similar piece of code in multiple languages. It avoids extensive need to learn a new programming language or searching web.
4. Effortless learning for beginners
Beginners are always seeking for resources to step their feet in the programming paradigm. With the emerging resources, syntaxdb offers information related to any programming languages such as syntax and explanation within fingertips.
How to search on SyntaxDB?
Syntaxdb uses a very simple and easy interface.
Give an input related to the information you want in any programming language. For example,‘Arrays in Java’ and Hit ‘Go’.
This will display Syntax, notes and Examples based on the search.
Anthony Nguyen made things even easier for the programmers and eliminated the need to search web. SyntaxDB proved to be more than just a web browser by integrating with different tools which allow the programmers to avail the utility anytime and anywhere.
It is worthy to wait for future advancements Nguyen is planning to introduce in Syntaxdb, making it the world’s largest programming reference portal. More plugins and integrations for different IDEs and code editors are yet to be introduced, more programming languages and size of the database has to be extended. The community needs more enthusiasts like Nguyen to make development more seamless and efficient.
