Gource – a software version control visualization tool

One of the first things I do any time I start a new job or enter a new repository is run Gource – it gives me an initial sense of several things: * Project structure (how flat vs hierarchical is the file tree?) * Which files keep being edited (likely to find bugs and/or tech debt there) * Which areas different people tend to work in (eg, do they hop around a lot between client/server?) And of course it is…

Years ago I was a man of many hats at a startup. One of my hats was build and release guy. We had a demo day for investors and I was like “what the heck do I show them?” A Gource generated movie of the startup’s main repo saved the day. :-) Edit: oh wait, it was probably codeswarm: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=221601

There are some interesting things that can be done with gource beyond version control. Here's someone using it to visualize OpenBSD pf(4) firewall logs! http://www.echothrust.com/blogs/monitoring-pf-logs-gource

Used it. But although overall idea is good (I'm a fan of code visualization, source code mining etc.) I had problems to really get anything useful from Gource. Animations looked beautiful but had I really understood better project which I worked on? Not really. It showed me just figures of people that shot laser beams into files. I learned Who and When edited which File - but it was all - it didn't me any more edition patterns or insights.